


A Hundred Thursdays

by Midnight Musume (Peas)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Identity Reveal, Kissing, Marichat, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:55:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26009125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peas/pseuds/Midnight%20Musume
Summary: Marinette is stuck repeating the same day over and over. Her friends (and especially Chat Noir) help her cope.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 54
Kudos: 451





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S THURSDAY, I AM POSTING THIS ON A THURSDAY!
> 
> This idea's been in my to-write for a while and then I watched Palm Springs and said to myself, "it is time. I must commit to the timeloop." Even though I've written timeloops before. I just love this trope, okay?
> 
> This is meant to take place soonish after Timetagger as if Hawk Moth was really into time-themed akumas for a second. So somewhere after Desperada and before Chat Blanc give or take regardless of what episode order you use. Doesn't really matter, you can even totally ignore I said this if you'd like.

It’s a really good day so far! Marinette actually got a good night’s sleep for once! She also did not drop the carton of raspberries all over the kitchen this morning like she had yesterday while topping her yogurt with them. It’s Friday and then the weekend and she could get work done on her matching outfits for Juleka and Rose. And finish her literature essay on _Bonjour Tristesse_. That too.

“Mari! Did you see that akuma last night?” Alya calls out with enthusiasm about akumas that only Alya can have. Marinette smiles and opens her mouth to answer but stops. There wasn’t an akuma last night. They talked about the one from the night before yesterday morning, but there hasn’t been another.

“What?” she blinks, continuing to approach the group. Her stomach twists. Did she miss an akuma somehow? Had Chat Noir handled it alone? Or someone else?

“Oh man I can’t believe you missed it. It was this rewindy guy like Viperion and-”  
“Wasn’t that Wednesday?” Marinette asks, a little distracted from her own dread as Adrien gives her a smile in greeting.

“Yeah Wednesday, last night,” Alya nods like that explains everything.

“But today’s Friday,” Marinette glances around at the faces of Adrien, Nino, and Alix for confirmation.

“That’s wishful thinking,” Nino sighs.

“Yeah, sometimes I go whole days thinking it’s the next day instead too,” Alya nods. It was nice that her friends were so supportive about it but Marinette was _sure_. Cat Noir came over last night because he watches new episodes of _Kitchen Competition_ together with her family and that airs on **thursdays**.

“Yesterday was Thursday. The akuma was the night before last,” she isn’t sure why she is insisting. Her friends are probably right. Maybe she really isn’t getting enough sleep.

“No, it was definitely last night. I barely slept, the fight kept waking me up,” Adrien yawns for effect. That fight wasn’t anywhere near here, though?

“Yeah Mari, it was definitely last night,” Nino. Marinette watches Alya nod in agreement and looks to Alix as well, just to make sure. Alix looks concerned but confirms with a nod.

“Maybe I dreamed it…” Marinette sighs.

“You really need to work on your sleep schedule, girl,” Alya puts her arm over Marinette’s shoulders for a light squeeze.

“No kidding,” Marinette manages to laugh it off. They show her the cell phone footage compilation of the akuma battle from Wednesday night even though she’s pretty sure they showed her this already.

“Look!” Adrien grins, “Wasn’t Chat Noir cool there?”

“Bro, you have really got it bad,” Nino sighs.

“He was cool,” Marinette agrees. It’s not untrue and _Adrien_ said it, after all. Again.

They definitely had this conversation yesterday, didn’t they? And Max came over to explain why everyone remembered all of the time resets even though he didn’t know that Cat Noir and Ladybug hadn’t been afforded that same luxury? Marinette _remembered_ that!

“I think it’s fascinating how-” And there Max was saying _exactly_ what he said yesterday. Marinette ducks under Alya’s arm to back out of the group. How could she remember today if it was today right now? Was she just having some serious deja vu or what? It’s gotta be deja vu, or some leftover effect from the Rewinder akuma. It was probably that. That makes sense. The whole Friday-Thursday thing is going to work itself out and wear off. Probably before lunch.

“Ugh, step off, pigtails,” Lila brushes past Marinette, aggressively knocking their elbows together. Marinette blinks. Well. At least that was different than yesterday. Today. Today-yesterday. Last time. Yeah, ‘last time’ is a good phrase. It’s just enough removed from the reality of what’s happening. A reality Marinette would rather not think about just at the moment. She makes her way to her spot in class, keeping a sharp eye on her surroundings before flicking the clasp on her purse.

“Tikki! What is going on?” she yells in a very quiet whisper.

“What do you mean, Marinette?” Tikki’s cute little voice whisper-yells back to her. 

“What do I mean? What do you mean what do I mean?! It’s Thursday again!”

“That happens every week,” out of literally anyone else it would have felt condescending. 

“It was Thursday yesterday! Don’t you remember?”

“No…”

“Augh!” Marinette slams her hands down on the desk and drops her forehead down to rest on them, groaning.

“Are you okay?” Tikki inquires softly.

“Fine. It’s fine. This is fine,” Marinette drags her head back up and takes a deep breath. _Fine._ She will just have to do today again. It’s not a big deal. It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to her, and it’s not the worst thing that’s ever going to happen to her. She will handle it, she’s Marinette! Nothing can stop her!

“Somebody looks determined,” Alya smirks, taking her seat beside Marinette.

“Today started out a good day and I _am_ going to keep it that way,” Marinette nods firmly.

“Good for you, girl!”

She’d forgotten about the pop quiz in calc. That really put a damper on things, especially since she still didn’t know the answer to number 4, 16, or 18. She’d meant to ask Chat Noir to help her figure those out last night (tonight?) but decided not to in the end because _the quiz was over_. She’d thought the damage was already done! How was this fair? Here she was getting a free redo and not making anything better at all. Not making the day any better than it was last time. Was it so bad last time, though? Despite the pop quiz thing? Last time she was tired from fighting the Rewinder akuma, but the rest of the day was fine. There was excellent soup at lunch and she’d had a great time at Art Club before going home to watch _Kitchen Competition_ with her parents and Chat Noir. Her favorite team was eliminated, but that’s fine. There was no way she could have an effect on that outcome.

“How’d you do on the quiz, Nino?” Adrien was asking.

“He did great,” Marinette sighed. Because she knew.

“Were… you… looking?” Nino made a face.

“Oh! No, no, no!” she denies quickly, maybe a bit too forcefully, maybe standing up and waving her arms around in front of her was too much.

“Chill, I wouldn’t tell,” Nino assures, “But you really shouldn’t cheat, Marinette.”

“I wasn’t!” she shamefully slides back into her seat.

“I take it you had a rough time on those questions? 16 was pretty tricky. The wording was weird,” Alya with the life-saving.

“Yeah… and a few others… what about you?” Marinette avoids looking at Adrien. She doesn’t want to know what he thinks now that he thinks she cheats on tests! He’s definitely still looking at her!

When is this supposed to wear off? The soup was amazing yesterday but she’s not as into it today. Marinette’s doing her best not to answer questions or say her part before people are done talking. It’s so hard, because she can remember so clearly what everyone is about to do. Redo Day is the worst. Marinette decided to keep the rest of the day as true to the Last Time as possible so today can continue being a Good Day, but it’s so difficult. She doesn’t want to do the same exact thing again or have the same exact conversations. It’s not interesting. It’s like all the life is drained out of everything. Just like her soup. She ends up letting Kim have her leftovers when he asks. That was something that hadn’t happened Last Time, but she also hadn’t had any leftovers Last Time for him to ask for. At least there hadn’t been any akumas, so she won’t have to deal with that again.

Marinette begrudgingly got through the rest of the school day. She was careful that Art Club went the same as it had Last Time, and she was careful when cooking dinner with her mom. Chat Noir arrives just as they are finishing the dishes and they gather around the television to watch her favorite team get kicked off of _Kitchen Competition_ for the second day in a row. She can’t wait to go to sleep and to be done with this whole anomaly. At least tomorrow she would go on to Friday or maybe just skip Friday entirely and go to the weekend. That wouldn’t be so bad. A small price to pay.

* * *

Marinette gets another good night's rest and actually wakes up a whole four minutes before her alarm goes off. She stares at the phone screen though and slowly pushes herself up and out of bed.

“Tikki!” she yells at full volume. No! Not again! It can’t be Thursday _again_! “Tikki!”

“Marinette?” her kwami yawns, but with genuine concern.

“It’s _still_ Thursday!” Marinette shouts at her.

“Okay,” Tikki nods, rubbing her eye with a flipper.

“I did Thursday yesterday! And the day before that! It can’t be Thursday again!” Marinette’s heart is racing. This can’t be real. This sucks! It’s supposed to be Saturday!

“What do you mean?” Tikki tilts her head in confusion.

“What do you mean what do I mean? This is the third time I’ve had to do today!” Marinette feels like she is going to just combust into flames. There is no way this is real.

“Maybe it’s some lingering effect from that akuma last night?” Tikki stops being confused and starts being actually helpful but Marinette’s adrenaline is running too hard.

“It was _days ago_ for me! I thought it would just wear off! I don’t want to do today again, Tikki!”

“I’m sorry Marinette. Let’s wait for you to calm down and think about what we can do!” she offers brightly and Marinette is secretly upset about Tikki’s perpetual optimism. Today was not going to be a good day.

“So do I just have to go along with regular life assuming that I’ll get to Friday? How do I know? Is it just going to randomly happen one day after I’ve done something crazy like- I don’t know- asking Adrien out?” Marinette has opted not to eat yogurt This Time. This Time is going to be different than the Last Two Times, because the world is unfair and life is fleeting. She’s having toast with fruit (didn’t spill the raspberries) and honey and whipped cream because it’s Thursday and she is going to indulge however she can. It’s called self care. Oh, maybe later she could do a nice bath! With bubbles.

“I don’t know Marinette. I think you should play it safe, but if you want to try asking him out this is a great opportunity!”

“It’s always a great opportunity and I never do it,” Marinette rolls her eyes. She was self-aware enough to know that much. If she did it knowing the next day would just reset, she would just have to live the rest of her life knowing his answer. And either way, she didn’t really want to know. She couldn’t handle it. That’s why it was never going to happen. Not because of Kagami or Luka or anything else. Because she didn’t want to know. Not yet. Not until she was ready. She doesn’t know what ready is but she knows that she’s not.

“Marinette…” Tikki sounds sad about it.

“Can we go back to figuring out what’s happening so we can maybe _fix it_?” Marinette sighs. They end up deciding to transform into Ladybug but none of those powers have any effect. At least that they can tell.

“Mari! Did you see that akuma last night?” Alya calls out when Marinette arrives.

“Yeah, I did. I actually think I got hit with his time loop thing and I’m repeating today for the third time,” Marinette answers honestly.

“You got hit?” she only heard Adrien’s concern over everyone else’s responses.

“Yeah. We’re going to have a pop quiz in calc later,” she says. At least she would have some independent confirmation if that happened again and then all of her friends would believe her and maybe be able to help.

“Does everything happen the same way each day?” Alix asks and Marinette nods.

“But Ladybug used her fixing thing,” Nino speaks up next, “Why didn’t it work on you?”

“I really don’t know. I am starting to freak out,” Marinette confesses. Alya links elbows with her.

“What if we find Ladybug? Maybe she can help,” Adrien has a look of determination. Alya nods, whipping out her phone with her free hand to probably post to the Ladyblog. Little do they know how little Ladybug knows about how to fix this particular problem.

“Viperion. See if his power-”

“I don’t want to go back _further_ ,” Marinette cringes, having interrupted Adrien’s second suggestion. At least her friends believed her? Without any questions, too. That’s a little reassuring.

“Right… so you need Bunnix, but why haven’t I shown up yet?” Alix frowns. That was a good question. Tikki hadn’t even thought about Bunnix.

“Maybe Marinette’s in her own time bubble that cannot be penetrated by outside forces. If she’s repeated alone, she could be on her own to get out of it,” Max says, coming out of nowhere. That’s _extremely reassuring_. 

“You know about this kind of stuff?” Alix squints at him suspiciously. He shrugs his shoulders.

“It’s all theoretical. Maybe Adult Alix just simply isn’t here on this date. Physically,” Max says.

“We should try and contact her anyway,” Alya nods, “I think Alix is right that she’s the best hero to fix Marinette’s _Groundhog Day_ thing.”

“Thanks guys…” Marinette looks around at each of them. Another Thursday wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t so alone in it.

She didn’t remember to find out before the test what the answers were to the questions that she kept getting wrong were, so that was an oversight. Otherwise, she was right about things not being so bad with her friends by her side. After the pop quiz, any doubt anyone might have been harboring was vanished. Marinette did not order the soup for lunch, instead opting for the chicken and vegetable stir fry. She’d originally not ordered it two Thursdays ago to avoid anyone making some sort of asian joke to her but nobody did and it was super delicious. Adrien and Nino were in a friendly debate about _Edge of Tomorrow_ versus _Happy Death Day_ as pertaining to Marinette’s predicament. Marinette did not want either of those movies to apply to the situation at hand at all.

“So we have to figure out what it is you have to do to break the loop,” Alya concludes.

“Thursday is a good day!” Marinette groans and starts to list it out, “There are no akuma attacks and lunch is delicious. I have a good night at home and I actually go to sleep for once.”

“That’s it,” Nino says.

“What?” Marinette blinks at him.

“You have to stay up. Make it to Friday,” Alya nods in agreement.

“But I finally got some sleep…”

“I think you have to keep trying things until something works,” Adrien looks like he feels sorry for her as he says it. Marinette feels sorry for herself, too.

So that night after her favorite team gets kicked off of _Kitchen Competition_ again, she pulls Chat Noir aside and asks him if he can stay to help keep her awake until midnight.

“On a school night?” he smirks mischievously, “ _You bet_.”

“Also I was wondering if you could help me with math?”

“You usually don’t need much help, but my services are freely available.”

“I appreciate it. Meet on the roof later?”

“Oh, I’m going to make a _big_ show of leaving for your parents,” he winks. Marinette laughs.

“What are you two being so secretive about?” Marinette’s dad teases. Chat Noir treats it like his cue.

“Important teenager things. You wouldn’t understand. It’s paw-bably time for me to head out Mr. D. Thanks for everything. See you next week, Sabine!” Chat fist-bumps her father and hugs her mom and lets himself out. That wasn’t more of an exit than he usually made, honestly. Pretty par for the course. Totally normal. She gathers up her school things and an LED lamp and heads up to her balcony to get some tutoring from a guy wearing a leather bodysuit in the middle of the night. Totally normal.

“You should be a teacher,” Marinette comments. Chat Noir single handedly fixed all of her calculus issues in an hour. He lets out a little huff and leans back in his chair, stretching his arms out over his head.

“Your teacher should’ve explained things better,” he dismisses it, “Most people aren’t thinking about my thinker when they think of my talents.”

“You should do a PSA, ‘hey actually Chat Noir is a genius’ so that everyone will know.”

“Then _everyone_ will want me to help them with their homework and where will that leave you?” he grins. Was she that special? She was, but he didn’t even know about the Ladybug thing. He just knew all the Marinette parts were special anyway. That was nice. He hadn’t even bugged her about the repeating time thing. Marinette realizes it’s because she _hadn’t told him_.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I have to stay up until midnight?” she questions. He looks at her for a moment without answering. What is he coming up with?

“I don’t care what the reason is. You asked me to, so I will,” Chat gives her a quick smile and a shrug. Did he always let people do that to him? She knew that he wasn’t a pushover, he’s argued with Ladybug over things before. 

“Don’t just go along with things without knowing why,” Marinette grumbles.

“Why not? I trust you,” he says it so simply. He trusts Ladybug like that, too. She knows he does. She trusts him the same way.

“I think I’m stuck in a time loop,” she tells him. Chat Noir nods silently. She waits for him to comment, but it doesn’t come. “Usually there’s some kind of thing you have to fix when you get in this situation, but there’s not anything I can think of unless it’s my calc quiz grade which doesn’t seem like it would be important enough to warrant bending the rules of the universe for so my friends thought if I just stayed awake until tomorrow instead of going to sleep that might break the cycle and I basically never sleep anyway but it seems stupid to stay up doing work if I’m just going to lose all my progress later so I thought maybe you could just keep me company because…”

“I see,” he nods, not judging her for her tangent. He looks like he’s followed it well enough. Marinette trusts that he has.

“I understand if you don’t believe me, I know how it sounds. I was kind of surprised my friends even believed it or maybe they were just playing along with it but I know that this sounds insane and the first time it happened I really did think I was insane but I don’t think that I am I think that it’s real.”

“I believe you, Marinette. I’m sure your friends believe you, too.”

“Thanks,” she slumps with relief. She hadn’t realized how nervous she was. What would she have done if _Chat Noir_ laughed about this? Instead he looked appropriately serious and he wasn’t pushing her for details.

“You’re not going to ask any questions about it?” Marinette says it out loud.

“I don’t know any more about it than you do,” he shrugs, “If you want to keep asking me to accompany you on your repeats, I will be happy to.”

“It’s not extra time for you,” Marinette laughs.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it less real. Honestly, I’m worried about you. Please keep telling me if you keep being in this situation. I don’t want you to be on your hundredth Second Chance and I just show up to yell about roux like the last hundred times and you don’t tell me that that’s the hundredth time. Can you promise me that?”

“Do you want to know before or after the roux?”

“I don’t know yet. Just whenever,” Chat pouts, shifting his body position again. He just never sat still. “If you can figure out how to tell me first thing in the morning, that would be best. It would give me more time to help figure out a solution.”

“I don’t think I could do that without identity,” Marinette cringes.

“You can pretend to be an akuma! I’ll have to show up to fight you!” he suggests and she laughs.

“Are you going to ask me what number this is?”

“Are you going to keep count?”

“Hopefully I won’t have to,” Marinette sighs, “This is the third day. The hypothesis is that it has something to do with that rewinding akuma from Wednesday.”

“If it doesn’t work tell me tomorrow. I will try to find Ladybug for you.”

“What’s your plan if that doesn’t work?”

“What’s yours?” he turns the question around. She doesn’t know how to answer. She doesn’t have a plan. They sit in silence for a while. An emergency vehicle drives past.

“If I were in your situation, I wouldn’t be handling it as well.”

“You should have seen me this morning when I woke up. It was textbook ‘not handling things well’ that’s for sure,” Marinette chuckles, “But I’m Marinette and I have nothing but endurance. However long this takes, I’ll manage.”

“That’s really brave,” he grins.

“Thank you. Hopefully it’s just until midnight, though!”

* * *

Thursday. It’s Thursday. It was Friday but now it is Thursday again. Staying awake did not help. Maybe it was the sleeping? How was she supposed to never sleep? Marinette pushes herself out of bed and gets ready for the day. That day being Thursday. Again. She has an omelette for breakfast and says goodbye to her parents in the bakery on her way out to school.

“Mari!” Alya yells over to her about the akuma again. Marinette tiredly lets herself be drawn into their little friend circle.

“This is the fourth time I’ve done today. Max is about to come over and we are going to have a pop quiz in calculus,” she interrupts the explanation of what the akuma’s powers were.

“What?”

“Time loop,” she yawns, “Stayed up until Friday with Chat Noir but when I woke up it was just today again.”

“Chat Noir?” all four of them seem to care about that part of the story for some reason.  
“Yeah, we watch _Kitchen Competition_ together on Thursdays. My team gets kicked out tonight for bad plating.”

“ _What_?” Adrien nearly shrieks.

“W...what?” she blinks back at him. Did Adrien watch _Kitchen Competition_ and did Adrien know about her favorite team????

“You hang out with Chat Noir?” Adrien seems a little off about it.

“You have got to lay off about the cat, dude,” Nino sighs heavily, in a way to communicate his long-suffering patience with Adrien’s fanboying.

“I just, all this time and Marinette didn’t tell me!” Adrien whines, looking chastised enough.

“You could go over to Marinette’s for some _Kitchen Competition_ if you wanted to meet him,” Alya wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. Marinette can’t even find the energy to argue.

“I wish I could. I have fencing tonight…”

“Did we forget Marinette said she’s in a time loop?” Alix points out, waving a hand in Marinette’s direction. Probably to distract from any potential sadness about the unintended rejection that Marinette might have.

“Time loop?” Max arrives, “What kind of time loop?”

She has to rehash all the information from yesterday to her friends and it takes through lunch to do that and they don’t come up with anything helpful but at least she aced her calc quiz this time. She tells her parents about it, too. They’re skeptical but accepting nonetheless, just as Marinette expected. They are still discussing when Chat Noir shows up. Nobody watches any _Kitchen Competition_ that night, and Marinette doesn’t get any closer to a solution despite how nice it is to have the support of her family and friends.

* * *

Day four she eats yogurt and drops the raspberries. She pretends to go along with the conversation about the akuma with her friends and she aces her calc quiz and eats soup at lunch.

“You seem down,” Marc comments quietly in art club.

“It’s been a long day. I feel a little defeated.”

“Marinette is never defeated. I’m sure you just need some time,” Marc smiles. She nods, a little touched. She had nothing _but_ time, honestly.

“If you were making a comic about someone having to repeat the same day over and over, how would it end?”

“Probably with an explosion,” is the shrug. She doesn’t want to do that.

“Yeah,” she packs away her sketchbook and stands up, “I think I’m just going to go home and try to get some sleep.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“Thank you, Marc.”

She skips watching _Kitchen Competition_ with her parents and Chat Noir, but the hero comes into her room during what’s probably a commercial break. She pauses the timeloop film analysis youtube video and minimizes the window.

“I just wanted to say hi and check on you,” Chat Noir smiles kindly. She manages to smile back, remembering how he’d asked her the night before not to hide this from him.

“Thank you, Chaton,” Marinette watches as his cheeks pink at Ladybug’s petname for him.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he offers brightly once he’s over being temporarily flustered.

“Actually… you told me to keep telling you so I will. I’m stuck repeating today, so this time around I just felt a little… defeated.”

“Marinette, defeated?” he has the same reaction as Marc earlier.

“It happens. I’ll pull it together for tomorrow’s today,” she sighs. Chat Noir frowns, crossing an arm over his chest and resting his chin between his forefinger and thumb with the other hand.

“Have you tried having fun? Sometimes taking a little break or doing something you usually wouldn’t helps to keep you going,” he suggests, “If you’re just doing the same school day every day without goofing off any, that’s exhausting.”

“What if I wake up and today didn’t repeat and I did a bunch of crazy stuff?”

“Then it’s the price to pay to get out?” Chat shrugs with a little cringe like he knows that’s not ideal and that Marinette didn’t like to embarrass herself more than she already did on a regular basis. “I’m not saying you have to do anything crazy. Just remember to take care of yourself sometimes. Take a break. Let loose.”

“Like you?” she smirks.

“Exactly like me,” he nods seriously.

“Then what do you suggest I do?”

“Anything! Be free!” he throws his arms in a circle, “Escape to your friends house to watch cooking shows!”

Marinette laughs and it’s the first time she’s laughed all day. It does feel better. She and Chat Noir play video games until she falls asleep on his shoulder.

* * *

The next day she decides to only tell Alya, pulling the girl out of their akuma gossip group to do so.

“This is going to sound crazy, but I’m stuck repeating the same day over and over. Can you figure out some way to batsignal Bunnix or something?” Marinette says. Alya squints at her.

“Did you get hit by Rewinder?”

“I think so.”

“What were you doing so close to the action?” Alya’s stance indicates she’s settling in for an interrogation. 

“I don’t remember, Alya. I’m just trying to get to Friday!”

“Amen, sister!” someone from another class snap-finger-guns at her in passing. That’s weird.

“Okay, okay. I’ll try tagging her on socials. What about Ladybug?”

“Already tried Ladybug and Chat Noir,” Marinette lies. Alya sighs, tapping away on her phone screen.

“How many repeats have you been through?”

“Five. We’re going to have a pop quiz in Calculus.”

“You don’t have to prove it to me, Marinette. This is Paris. Crazy stuff happens to everyone all the time.”

“Thank you Alya.”

“I’ve got you, girl. There, posted.”

“Thanks. Can you keep this a secret for now? I don’t feel like explaining it to everyone again. Nino and Adrien argued about timeloop movies for a whole day last time.”

“They would,” Alya giggles fondly.

“Marinette,” Adrien wiggles his way in front of her in the lunch line. That’s unusual. This particular Thursday is officially Weird Thursday.

“Adrien?”

“Is… everything okay? I saw this post Alya made and I just… think she’s talking about you,” he looks a little bit bashful, asking about it.

“What’ll ya have?” the lunch staff asks him.

“What? Oh. Um…”

“Both the soup and stir fry are really good today,” Marinette advises. He stares at her long enough for the staff to get antsy. Marinette remembers that Adrien had chicken and salad a few of her Thursday rotations ago.

“He’ll have chicken,” she orders for him, “I will, too.”

“Marinette-”

“I haven’t had the chicken yet- besides in the stir fry,” Marinette shrugs, “I’ve done today five times and I think you always get chicken.”

“It was you, then,” he says when they’ve gotten their trays, “Do you um… want to sit together?”

“What? Why?” she blinks. Man, this chicken does not look appetizing at all. The little roll and salad it came with at least look edible.

“Honestly, I’m worried about you. If I was in your situation, I wouldn’t be handling it well,” Adrien picks out a small table for them that is not with Alya and Nino. This can’t be real.

“It’s a little discouraging, but I’ll keep going. It’s not like I have a choice.”

“Why even come to school? If you’re just repeating the same school day without any fun, that’s exhausting,” Adrien laughs.

“That sounds like what Chat Noir said last night,” she comments.

“A superhero told you to play hookey?”

“Is that what you’re saying I should do?”

“No, I really want to know what Chat Noir said first,” Adrien looks cautious like he wouldn’t want to do anything that’d get him in trouble with the heroes.

“He didn’t tell me to play hookey, just that I should let myself have fun sometimes.”

“I agree with that,” Adrien looks pleased.

“This chicken is terrible, why did you order this?” Marinette finally tried the lunch. At least now she knew.

“It came with salad? Please stop me from getting this again on your repeats, I beg you,” Adrien laughs.

“No promises,” she grins, fishing the tomato out of the salad instead. Tomato good. Tomato on Weird Thursday. A just having a regular _lunch date_ with _Adrien Agreste_ tomato good.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Yes, of course you can!” Marinette jumps on it like a starved hyena.

“Ladybug asked me to use the Miraculous that Viperion has now, and I was really bad at it. I repeated _a lot_. It was only the same few minutes over and over again, but I kind of know what it’s like and not a lot of people would. So if I can be any help to you or a support, please don’t hesitate to tell me,” Adrien is _so earnest_ about it. Her heart flutters and then her stomach turns over as the meaning of the words settle in.

“How many repeats did you do?” she felt like she knew why he was being so nice to her now.

“Um… a few hundred,” he lies bashfully. She doesn’t press him on it.

“I hope I don’t have to do that many.”

“Me too,” he nods.

“And your advice is just to play hookey.”

“How many times can you sit through literature without going crazy?” he justifies. Literature was their next class.

“If you were skipping class, where would you go?” Marinette asks him.

“I have no idea. Just… around, I guess?”

“Do you want to come with me?” she’s surprised that she’s said it. Adrien’s smile slowly widens.

“Why, Marinette! I thought you’d never ask,” he stands up with a flourish, pulling her along with him out of the cafeteria. Her heart races so much faster than it has to.

They sneak out easily after Marinette took the lead on it following Adrien nearly running them straight into a teacher. They’ve run together all the way into Châtelet station before stopping, both slightly winded and laughing. Nobody pays them a second glance.

“We really did it!” Marinette shakes her head in disbelief. Her phone is going crazy and she doesn’t dare look at it because whatever her friends are saying it will absolutely make her lose her nerve. 

“Do we get on the subway?” Adrien’s already fishing in his bag for his Metro pass. 

“Where to?”

“I’m getting on whichever train gets here first,” Adrien smirks. They get on 11 and he sits next to her and everything. It’s a few minutes before her brain catches up.

“Oh my god, what are we _doing_? You’re going to get in so much trouble! And then your father will hate me! And then we won’t be able to hang out anymore!”

“It’s fine, Marinette. You’re going to have a do-over anyway,” he says.

“What about you, then? You don’t! Maybe I’m making a bunch of miniature alternate realities!”

“Relax,” Adrien laughs, “Even if I am grounded for a month this was worth it.”

He’s so perfect. How could anyone be that perfect? And not the definition of perfect in that he’s conventionally attractive and smart and funny or whatever (which he is), but perfect to Marinette because he was always capable of doing or saying exactly what she needed. Maybe she _should_ tell him. Like he said, she was just going to have a do-over the next day anyway.

“Adrien, I… I… I-I… uh…” it’s no use. She turns away to look at the underground darkness out the window instead. She can see his reflection instead, and it’s obvious he knows it when their eyes meet.

“It’s okay, Marinette,” he says reassuringly, but Marinette’s not sure what he’s insinuating is ‘okay’ at all. Does he _know_? If true, that’s mortifying. Is he going to say anything? She doesn’t want to know!

“I don’t… I don’t want to abuse the time loop. What if I wake up tomorrow and it’s Friday and I’ve done a bunch of crazy things I regret?” she justifies. Adrien sinks into his seat a little, looking up at the carriage ceiling.

“Then that’s the price to pay for escaping it. I guess it is harder to do this kind of thing when you have no control over your resets.”

“Did you sneak out on your duties a lot when you had the snake powers?” Marinette asks, not accusingly. She wouldn’t blame him. She’s already taking a break and she’s only on day five.

“Not really, I was working towards a specific goal. It’s just a few times I was selfish and I don’t necessarily think that was for the best.”

“What did you do?” she’s just curious. That’s all. 

“Se-cret,” he smiles to himself. She pouts. 

They ride past two stations in a warm silence until Adrien decides it’s okay to speak up again. Maybe he was just annoyed with being silent, he wasn’t the kind of guy who liked to keep his opinions to himself.

“If you’re stuck in this for a long time you will probably do crazy stuff and get frustrated and feel desperate and helpless. I just… I understand, so don’t be afraid to talk to me about it. No matter what I’ll be in your corner on this. I won’t judge you.”

“Thank you,” she breathes, “That’s really sweet.”

“I’m serious, Marinette,” he frowns at her. Why would Adrien be so worried? She was Marinette! She could handle this. But Adrien wasn’t Marinette, he was Adrien.

“Are you okay, Adrien?” she whispers. Maybe he was so insistent that he understands what she’s going through because he’s desperate for someone to understand _him_. “You know that you can talk to me, too. I might not be as deep yet as you were, but I will do my best. I’m just going to have a re-do anyway. This won’t count.”

“It _does_ count. It counts for you. It’s still real for you.”

“All of your times were real for you,” Marinette nods. He sighs.

“Yeah.”

They ride the train until they only have enough time to get back home to match with school ending, chatting about not so serious things and various time loop theories. Marinette tells him the important points he’s missing from their skipped classes. They step back out at Châtelet Station and it feels like their little bubble world ends. The miniature fantasy moment they’d created was over.

“I should go home and help my parents with dinner,” Marinette says, “Thank you very much for today. It means a lot to me.”

“No problem. I should get back home too, I can imagine my father isn’t going to be too pleased. I’m sure we were missed.”

“Don’t you have fencing practice today?” Marinette tilts her head. Hadn’t he said that? Adrien looks confused, and then like he’s calculating. Why hadn’t she kept up with his schedule?

“Forgot,” he cringes. It doesn’t feel right. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Or… you’ll see me. Or something.”

“Something,” Marinette smiles at him, letting him go.

Chat Noir’s late for _Kitchen Competition_ but Bunnix shows up instead. It was turning out to be a big day. She just popped into her living room, scaring the bejeebus out of her parents and dragging Marinette upstairs with some flimsy excuses not unlike the ones Marinette’s parents were used to hearing anyway.

“Can you help me?” Marinette questions immediately when they’re alone.

“I don’t know. You have to describe exactly what’s going on.”

“There was an akuma with rewinding powers Wednesday night and it might have been past midnight when he was defeated, which is why I think I’m stuck in Thursday. I can stay awake until Friday but I reset back to Thursday if I fall asleep.”

“And you’ve already exhausted everything Ladybug can do?” Bunnix crosses her arms, thinking.

“Of course,” Marinette nods. There’s a knock at her trapdoor.

“We’re fine!” Marinette shouts so her parents will leave them alone. The door opens anyway and the cat pokes his head up.

“It’s me, can I join?” Chat Noir’s already closing the door behind him, not caring about permission. He’d know he always got it anyway.

“What are you doing here?” Bunnix scolds him. He glances around, confused.

“I uh… watch _Kitchen Competition_ here? Is that bad?”

“Yes, it’s bad!” Bunnix groans, “Honestly, if it’s not one thing it’s another with this. You stay away from him, Marinette.”

“I guess I can stop coming…” Chat Noir looks crestfallen. And wrong. There’s something off about him today. She doesn’t want him to stop coming over, though.

“Ignore her. Why were you late? The last four times today you’ve been early,” Marinette’s suspicious. Of what, she doesn’t know. But something is fishy.

“ _Mon dieu_ ,” Bunnix sighs like she’s being tortured. That was pretty suspect as well!

“I’ll make it up to you next week,” Chat Noir shrugs, “What’s up? Why is Foofoo here?”

“ _Marinette_ is stuck in a repeating day,” the woman looks a little annoyed.

“Can you fix it?” Chat asks quickly, hopeful. It’s nice that he’s immediately so concerned. 

“I was about to try,” Bunnix tells him. And she does. They try everything they can think of.

* * *

The sixth Thursday she plays completely straight. Marinette doesn’t tell anyone about her predicament until Chat Noir shows up to watch the cooking show. She only tells him because he’d asked her to. And she doesn’t want to watch her team lose because of _plating_ again. She drags the superhero up to her room with only a passing concern about how cool her parents were with it.

“I’m in a repeating-days situation. You made me promise to keep telling you, so I am,” she explains as straight-forward as she can. Chat’s demeanor completely changes. He pulls close to her and rests his hand on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he looks so genuinely concerned, and worried in a way that he hadn’t the last few times she told him. Why is that?

“I’m fine, Chaton,” she says and his face doesn’t even flush up like it usually does. That’s weirdly disappointing. His features relax a little.

“I don’t know what I’ve said to you previously but no matter what, I’m in your corner. You can count on me! If you can figure out how to tell me first thing in the morning, that would be best. It would give me more time to help figure out a solution.”

“I feel like… you’ve said that before,” Marinette smirks. He smiles and offers to keep her company doing something “new to her” to help keep her from going crazy. He doesn’t really need to watch _Kitchen Competition_ , anyway.

* * *

So she decides to take Chat Noir’s advice. Figure out how to find him earlier. It should be weird to think of him as such an important lifeline, but it wasn’t. He was her partner and it felt natural to lean on him like this, and she knew she could trust him.

“Mari! Did you see that akuma last night?” Alya waves her over. 

“Yeah. Actually I think I got hit with something, I’ve had to repeat today a lot of times. Max should join us in a few minutes, and we’re going to have a calc quiz. I need you to help me get in contact with Chat Noir. He asked me to figure out how to tell him first thing in the morning and the easiest way is probably through the Ladyblog.”

“What about Bunnix?” Alix asks.

“She hasn’t been able to help so far. Ladybug and Chat Noir, too. But Chat is stubborn,” Marinette shrugs. There’s a few seconds of silence in her wake.

“You’re not gonna bug Marinette about Chat Noir, Adrien?” Nino teases.

“No, I’m a little worried about Marinette,” Adrien frowns at him.

“If you don’t believe me, that-”

“I believe you,” Adrien interrupts her, “I will always believe you.”

“Me too. Let’s get you Paris’ favorite furry,” Alya agrees, pulling out her phone to write whatever she writes to get the heroes’ attention. 

Adrien begs out of History complaining of an upset stomach, which is new. Probably all those days of sketchy cafeteria chicken catching up with him. Maybe her repeats were having a physical effect on the world around her after all. That’s possibly encouraging.

Chat Noir crashes her Chemistry class before the professor even gets a chance to spring the pop quiz on them.

“Gotta steal Marinette! Fate of the world level stuff! Sorry!” he picks her up and throws her over his shoulder before anyone can say anything. She’s laughing so hard about it by the time he drops her on the roof of Les Halles she almost rolls off the side.

“You asked for more time to figure this out but your first instinct is to just _steal me out of school_ instead,” it’s so funny. He kept telling her to have fun with her whole situation, and apparently ‘fun’ meant not going to school for the millionth time in a row.

“I panicked,” he admits bashfully, “Nobody ever calls for me for help and plus you’re my friend, so I was worried.”

“Shouldn’t you be in school too?” she realizes. Probably it was a bad idea to send an SOS to Chat Noir first thing in the morning, no matter what he’d asked. 

“You’re worth it,” he shrugs. She smiles. That’s so nice. He’s really caring. It was exactly what she didn’t know she needed to hear. It wasn’t like she was realizing that Chat Noir was a good person just now. She knew that already. She’s always known it. It’s just never been so… relevant. She knows he won’t stop trying to help her if that’s what she wants. Why isn’t it what she wants? She keeps spending all of this time _goofing off_ instead of taking her situation seriously. Maybe she was just wasting time.

“Hey, are you okay?” Chat Noir asks, sitting down next to her.

“I thought I was until just now. I feel like I’m wasting time but I have nothing _but_ time.”

“I get that,” he chuckles. Did he? Maybe she should have said something like that to Adrien instead. 

“Maybe I should be doing more to get out of this. I just don’t know what to do. This is so far beyond me. I really don’t think I’m in a fix-it-to-get-out plot or alien mind invasion or anything like that.”

“You think it’s just from the akuma, don’t you?” Chat Noir asks, his voice quiet.

“Yeah. Bunnix thinks that the strength of the effect gets reset every day too, so that’s why it doesn’t wear off.”

“Shit,” Chat Noir breathes, “How many days have you been through?”

“A week.”

“Are they all starting to blend together?”

“Do you have some experience with this, Chaton?” she’s beginning to suspect that he just might. The way he’s acted about it really…

“Nah, I just have watched a lot of timeloop movies.”

“Nino and Adrien, too. Believe me, I’ve heard about all of them now,” she laughs. He smiles softly at her, so softly. It’s comforting. Marinette can tell that he really cares about her. She knows she can tell him anything and he will be in her corner, just like he promised on some other Thursday or Thursdays.

“If it’s an akuma thing Ladybug should really be able to help…” Chat sighs.

“She hasn’t figured it out yet either. I really don’t know what to do, Chat. I’m scared,” she confesses. It’s something Marinette hasn’t even allowed herself to acknowledge yet, and here she is confiding in her partner. There’s nothing wrong with that, though. It actually feels kind of good.

“I’ll be by your side every step of the way, you just have to ask. Please keep telling me about this. Every day. At least at _Kitchen Competition_ time,” he requests.

“You already made me promise to tell you every day,” she smiles. It’s cute how predictable he’s starting to be, really. 

“Good. Don’t break that promise. I want to help. You won’t have to be as scared if I’m with you.”

* * *

“You… made me a _cheesecake_?” Chat Noir looks like he might cry.

“For being a good friend,” Marinette chuckles. She’d had to do something after how kind he’d been yester-Thursday. Even if he doesn’t remember that and won’t remember this. Chat Noir quickly pulls her into a tight, brief hug.

“You are a great friend, too!” he beams at her, as happy as can be.

“You’ve been the better one. I’ve had to repeat the same day a lot and you’ve been very supportive every day so this is kind of a thank you…”

“You’re what?”

“It’s a lingering effect from the akuma from Wednesday night,” Marinette slices him some of the cake as she explains. She feels like she should be tired of explaining but it was a necessity, “It doesn’t wear off because the strength resets when the day resets for me.”

Chat Noir takes a generous bite of cheesecake and practically _melts_ in pleasure. She giggles, a little proud of it.

“How did you get hit by that akuma? That fight was over in Villette,” he snaps out of his cheesecake-induced bliss with a frown. Maybe she hadn’t thought this through.

“I don’t know, it’s the best theory so far.”

“You sounded sure of it, though. That’s four kilometers from here. Nothing like this has happened before,” he’s really not going to let her off, “Were you there for some reason? Were you and Alya trying to get Ladyblog footage or something?”

“N-no. I wasn’t there,” Marinette is internally panicking. She’s hoping he lets it go. Marinette doesn’t know what to do if he doesn’t. Would it be okay to admit to being Ladybug if he’s not going to remember? Somehow that still feels wrong. Unfair the same way confessing her feelings to Adrien would be. Exploiting this horrible situation. Chat Noir takes another bite of cake, his eyes not leaving her as he does it. He chews and swallows before saying anything.

“Okay. I understand. It’s okay, Marinette,” he assures quietly. She smiles with relief, but Chat seems stiff and unsure.

“Thank you, Chat. You don’t have to worry about me today, it’s been a good day,” she says, confused about his body language. 

“I think if I were in your situation, I would not be handling it nearly as well.”

“There have been days,” Marinette smirks, “It’s a little scary, but you said I don’t have to be as scared if you’re here, and you are. I can at least count on you.”

Chat Noir has completely frozen, fork midway to his mouth. He’s staring at her with such intensity that it’s actually _unnerving_.

“What?” she asks, suddenly nervous. Her heart is _throbbing_ in her ears. Why is it doing that? She almost feels faint.

“N-nothing,” he swallows thickly, looking down. His face is lightly red, but he’s frowning. That’s confusing. They sit in awkward silence for a few moments.

“I thought I’d spend this repeat being nice to you instead of the other way around,” Marinette finally decides on what to say.

“You’re _always_ nice to me, Marinette. I mean, look at this cake,” the boy seems to shake himself out of whatever he was thinking, “I’m really glad you’re my friend. I wouldn’t know what to do if you weren’t my friend.”

“What do you mean?” she blinks. He’s not making any sense. He groans to himself, looking up at the ceiling.

“I don’t know what to say because you’ll remember and I won’t and you’re stuck in this thing and I don’t know what you already know or don’t know or what we’ve said before. This is really complicated,” he sighs.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s just the cake and saying that kind of stuff to me… I don’t know. I’m so happy.”

“You don’t look happy,” she calls him out on that immediately.

“Because _I don’t know_. Have we done this before? Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

“No,” Marinette is confused, “This is the first time.”

“So you haven’t started messing with people yet? Or gone around doing crazy stuff you usually wouldn’t do? Couldn’t do?”

“I wouldn’t mess with people like that, Chaton. It wouldn’t be fair to them whether or not it’s real,” she pouts. He swallows.

“Right. You wouldn’t,” Chat Noir smiles to himself, visibly relaxing.

“Are you afraid I was messing with you?” Marinette feels a little bit betrayed by that.

“It’s not you. The other people in my life would definitely take advantage of something like this. I would take advantage of something like this. I’m sorry for projecting that. Please just… tell me every day that this is happening to you. No matter what. I don’t want you to be on your hundredth-”

“I promised you that on Second Thursday, and I haven’t broken that promise yet,” she interrupts with a little laugh. He really was the same every single time, saying the same stuff when presented with the opportunity to. It wasn’t annoying, it was comforting.

“How many have you been through?”

“Eight.”

“Not that many…” he breathes in relief, “What are you going to do if you’re stuck in this a hundred times, or a thousand, ten thousand?”

“I’ll just have to keep enduring. I’ll figure it out eventually, I know that I will.”

“Good,” there’s that soft smile again. It twists something familiar inside of her, but she pointedly ignores that. “Can I… stay with you tonight?”

“Stay?” Marinette blinks.

“If the next… three hours and 47 minutes are all this version of myself has with this version of you, then I want all of that time. We can just play Mecha Strike or talk or whatever.”

“What is with you today?” Marinette rolls her eyes, trying to ignore how sweet that was of him, “Of course you can stay. Don’t expect to ever win at UMS3, though.”

“You have to lose eventually, Dupain-Cheng,” he challenges with a familiar flash of competitiveness. That was more comfortable. Mecha Strike would be good.

“Maybe we should stop,” Chat Noir yawns, “It’s almost time for you to reset.”

“I don’t reset at midnight,” Marinette realizes she hadn’t told him that, “It’s when I wake up.”

“Oh,” he blinks at her. She’s suddenly hyper-aware of how close they are. He’s sitting right next to her on the chaise, their shoulders occasionally brushing. He doesn’t look away from her and Marinette can’t bring herself to break the eye contact either. Why not? This is the new Weird Thursday, that other Weird Thursday had nothing on this one.

“You can stay however long you want, though,” she offers in a whisper. Why did she say that?

“Marinette,” he breathes. He’s going to kiss her. Marinette is sure of that, and she’s not sure why she is or why he’s going to.

“Can I… would it be weird to kiss you? Just this one time,” he looks somewhere between nervous and desperate. Marinette’s relieved he asked instead of just doing it. She wasn’t sure what she would have done. She wasn’t sure how to answer _now_ though, either.

“I… why? Why this time? I didn’t think you… liked me.”

“Today I think I do. It was probably the cake,” he searches her face nervously, “Nobody will ever know this happened except for you.”

“But I’ll still know.”

“Is that so bad?” he whispers. She doesn’t know. Was it? “Aren’t you curious? I’m curious.”

“Chat…” she manages his name and he nods, turning away.

She uses her finger on his cheek to turn him back.

“I know now you want to kiss me and I can’t go back from that.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” his hand on her arm, he pulls her into a kiss as he leans forward. She registers the texture of his costume under her fingers as she pulls him closer. Why is she doing this? It’s _Chat Noir_. His lips are soft and tender and it feels dizzying. She’s immediately intoxicated with it. When they separate he wraps her in a tight hug.

* * *

“We need to talk,” she meets him on the stairs when he’s on his way up to join them for _Kitchen Competition_. Chat Noir blinks, looking momentarily frightened.

“Sure, Marinette. You can tell me anything.”

“Can you come up with any reason right now why you’d want to kiss me?” she lays it out immediately. He glances around in confusion

“Um… no? What’s going on?” he cringes.

“I’m stuck in a repeating day type of situation and last night- last night from my perspective- we kissed,” she’s practiced this in her head so it doesn’t feel as mortifying to say out loud as she thinks it should.

“Uh…”

“Yeah. I’ve thought about it all day and I haven’t been able to figure out what changed. We just talked about the repeating stuff and played Mecha Strike and I baked you a cheesecake.”

“You baked me a _cheesecake_? He looks just as touched as he had yesterday and Marinette feels a pang of guilt that she hasn’t done so today.

“Yesterday I did. Today I was too _distracted_ ,” she says. 

“It was probably the cake,” he shrugs awkwardly.

“It’s really that easy for someone to seduce you from Ladybug?” she scolds, a little bit worried. Or jealous, maybe. She’s not sure anymore. None of it makes sense anymore.

“I guess not,” he chuckles, “I’m really sorry, Marinette. I… I don’t think I understand what happened either.”

“You were really weird.”

“I’m sorry!” he jumps.

“No. That’s not what I meant. I let you kiss me. It’s just that you were acting strange.”

“You… you let me kiss you too?” he blushes. It’s blushing. It’s not him getting flustered or being moved, it’s called blushing. All the times his cheeks go pink, that’s him _blushing_. He _likes_ her.

“You like me?” she confronts and he looks a little taken back by it.

“I… I don’t know? Maybe a little. Not like Ladybug. If you were Ladybug I’d definitely want to kiss you.”

“Oh!” That was it. He’d figured out her identity yester-Thursday. That made everything make sense, it was the only thing that made everything make sense.

“Oh?” Chat Noir repeats blankly.

“That’s what it is- NO, don’t say _anything_. Do not react! Don’t do anything! Just turn around and go home _right now_ and I will go to bed and you won’t remember this ever happened.”

“O-okay,” he stammers thickly, but seems to be frozen to the spot anyway. Marinette turns and runs. She doesn’t need to know what his reaction is.

* * *

“Do not order the chicken,” Marinette tells Adrien for the third or fourth time, “You like the stir-fry best.”

“What? I do?” 

“I’ve done today a lot. Time-loop.”

“Are you okay? If I was in your situation, I wouldn’t be handling it well,” Adrien replies before ordering the stir-fry. Marinette remembers what he’s told her before.

“When you were Aspik, did you do stuff you usually wouldn’t do?”

“I was in there a few months, I did everything you can think of within my time limit,” he shrugs, “I take it we’ve had conversations in your other repeats?”

“Just the one.”

“You can come to me whenever you need to. I’ll understand what you’re going through.”

“Thank you, Adrien,” she follows him to their regular table with Alya and Nino.

“Did you do something in one of your repeats you need to talk about? Or something you want to do?” he asks. Their friends are eyeing them curiously but Marinette ignores it. They won’t remember this next time anyway. Wow, she was really getting bold. Maybe she should do that confessing her feelings to Adrien thing after all. Except for that would be wrong and manipulative. And she still didn’t want to know. And now she extra didn’t want to know because of whatever she was feeling about Chat Noir. She couldn’t get all that mixed up. She couldn’t have a crush on two people. Oh no. Does that mean she has a crush on Chat Noir now?

“Oof, I’m sorry, Marinette,” Adrien looks a little guilty even though she hasn’t even answered his question.

“What are you apologizing for?” she blinks out of her mental spiral about her feelings to focus on the current situation.

“Oh um… I don’t know?” he looks a little bashful.

“Alright. Spill, you two. What’s going on?” Alya demands. Marinette laughs and explains her predicament.

“What were you doing in Villette?” Chat cocks his head to the side. Ah. So that was how he’d figured it out.

“Bakery delivery,” she lies this time. She’s practiced at lying to cover up her Ladybug activities so it comes easily to her this time. 

“In the middle of the night?” he blinks.

“People have macaron emergencies, do not doubt that,” she wags her finger at him playfully. He laughs and it’s refreshing to see. She’d kind of missed him after she ran him off the day before. God, she had it bad. It really only took her one kiss to feel like this about him? She’d kissed him so many times before in so many funny little situations, what made Cheesecake Thursday so different??

“What’s wrong?” he asks. 

“I’ve been goofing off. I really need to focus on getting out of this,” she sighs.

“If you’re just doing the same school day every day without goofing off any, that’s exhausting. I think it’s fine to take a break,” he smiles kindly, “Have you started messing with people yet? Or gone around doing crazy stuff you usually wouldn’t do? Couldn’t do?”

“No, I wouldn’t-” Marinette stops. She kind of has. She swallows, feeling guilty.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Chat Noir offers, judgement-free.

“It’s… it’s not fair,” she blinks. He looks like he hurts for her. The superhero pulls her into a gentle hug.

“I’m in your corner, Marinette. No matter what.”

The reality of how trapped she is nearly suffocates her, and she falls asleep crying on Chat’s shoulder without telling him anything at all.

* * *

“Tikki,” Marinette feels tired today. She’s staying home from school, faking a sickness, “I need to get out of this soon. It’s so complicated. I don’t want things to get more complicated and I don’t want to do all of that complicating by myself.”

“What are you talking about, Marinette?” Tikki blinks at her.

“I’ve done almost two weeks of Thursdays and I’m spending so much time with Chat Noir I… but he doesn’t remember any of it. It’s unfair to him.”

“Chat Noir?” Tikki blinks at her, “What about Adrien?”

“I’ve been spending time with Adrien, too. He gets really worried every time he finds out what’s happening to me. We even kind of went on a date one day.”

“Wow, Marinette!”

“Isn’t that… mean, though? If I just have all of this time by myself?” Marinette’s not sure how to articulate the certain brand of guilt she’s started to feel, “I’m getting all this… information I shouldn’t have?”

“I’m sure that whatever your friends have told you, they are things that they would say to you anyway,” Tikki pats Marinette’s cheek in what she probably thinks is a comforting gesture, “Isn’t it nice to know that they care about you?”

Chat Noir shows up right around the time school lets out, which is much, much earlier than he usually does. Marinette passively wonders what’s different about today for him on this go-around, but is distracted by his antics as he helps her and her mom cook dinner. She lets herself sit close to him during _Kitchen Competition_ and he doesn’t pull away.

“It’s my eleventh Thursday in a row,” she whispers quietly and then goes on to repeat a few lines from the reality show as they air. Chat Noir watches her curiously, obviously not caring about which team goes home this week anymore. Behind them, her parents get angry about roux. They usually joined in on that anger but instead continue to look at each other.

“Maybe you two want some privacy?” her father offers. Marinette blinks and scrambles away from Chat.

“No, what? Huh?” she panics. Chat Noir bursts into heavy laughter.

“Yeah, I think Marinette needs some air after being cooped up inside all day,” he says smoothly, “Thanks for everything, Mr. D. See you next week, Sabine! Come on, pigtails.”

“What?”

They’re walking along the Georges Pompidou before she knows it. That’s… a little romantic. Like a riverside date. More romantic than a ride on the subway, anyway. She really needs to stop comparing them.

“If you can figure out how to tell me first thing in the morning, that would be best. It would give me more time to help figure out a solution. Right now, I don’t think there’s any way I can help you,” Chat Noir sighs.

“You are helping me,” Marinette disagrees. He blinks at her in that frozen kind of way he had on Cheesecake Thursday so she says what she said on Cheesecake Thursday. Why not? “You said I don’t have to be as scared if you’re here, and you’re here for me every day. I can at least count on you, and that helps more than you can know.”

He’s stopped walking and fixed her with an intense look.

“What is it?” she asks. Some tiny, buried part of her hopes that he will ask to kiss her again.

“Nobody ever… needs me like that. I mean, maybe Ladybug sometimes, but…”

“You made me promise to tell you about the time loop every day, so you brought that on yourself!” she crosses her arms in a playful argument. 

“You trust me like that?”

“I trust you with my life,” no part about that is a lie. He stares at her in shock. Marinette continues walking now and he keeps step beside her.

“That really means a lot to me.”

“Does it?” she smirks before seeing how serious the expression on his face is. She looks away, embarrassed to have said that for some reason. They walk in silence for a few meters.

“What is your plan?” he asks. He’s not asked her that directly since the beginning. 

“I’ll just have to keep enduring. I’ll figure it out eventually, I know that I will,” she’s said that before, she thinks.

“Of course you will. You’re Marinette. You’re strong,” he nods like he needs to say that more for his own benefit than for hers, “It’s brave.”

“Brave? I’m actually super scared,” she chuckles nervously. Why were the things he’s saying today getting to her like this? She knew why. She was just going to keep ignoring that unless he asked to kiss her again. She really wanted him to ask, though.

“No, it’s one of the bravest things I’ve ever heard. I really admire people who won’t give up like you,” Chat Noir shrugs. Marinette finds herself smiling. It was what he liked about Ladybug, too. She doesn’t mind that at all. It’s not like she’s in competition with Ladybug.

“I admire people who are kind and support the people close to them. Like you,” she admits. Why was flirting like this so easy with Chat Noir and so hard with Adrien? Was it the time loop giving her all this recklessness? She should’ve taken Tikki’s advice on Day Two and taken a shot at Adrien and she might not be such a gooey mess about _Chat Noir_ of all people right now instead.

“We are pretty close, aren’t we?” he asks. She doesn’t answer. Right now she’s probably closer with Chat Noir than she’s ever been with anyone else and that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon. Especially if she kept being stuck in Thursday.

“Maybe one-sidedly. I have so much more time in than you do,” she admits, “It’s… that’s what’s been getting to me today.”

“I understand,” he mumbles softly, “Is there maybe something you’re not telling me?”

“I don’t want to influence you. It feels wrong. It doesn’t feel like I’m being fair to anyone. It feels like I’m cheating.”

“That’s what time loops _are_ , Marinette. I don’t think you should feel guilty. I know anyone else would definitely take advantage of something like this. **I** would take advantage of something like this. It’s not your… your… fault that you’re stuck. You can only do your best,” he’s so sincere it almost kills her. She hugs him. She doesn’t think she’s ever initiated a hug before, it’s usually Chat Noir hugging Marinette, but she does it anyway because it’s what she wants to do and he’s being so sweet and she wants to hug him.

“Thank you,” she mumbles into his chest. He’s so tall.

“I’m in your corner, Marinette. No matter what.”

* * *

“Adrien, can I talk to you for a second?” Marinette gets to school earlier than usual to catch him before the whole akuma discussion can happen.

“Of course!” he says brightly and they move behind the courtyard stairwell.

“Thanks… it’s the 12th time I’ve had to repeat today and you told me on a few of the other times that I could talk to you about anything. And you should order stir-fry at lunch.”

“Oh!” he seems a little surprised, and then embarrassed, and then curious and worried, “Are you doing alright?”

“Yeah, this is probably going to be really weird and I can’t believe I’m talking to you about this instead of anyone else but I have this um… thing on Thursday nights with Chat Noir so I’ve been seeing him every night and he’s just been so nice to me every single day and it’s really meant a lot but he doesn’t remember any of it because everything gets reset for everyone else and I… I don’t want him to forget it all anymore and I feel so guilty about having all this time and information he doesn’t know about and I’m just taking and taking from him and-”

“Marinette, breathe,” Adrien stops her with a hand on her shoulder.

“I want it to stop now,” she starts to cry. How embarrassing, crying in front of Adrien about _Chat Noir_ like this. Never in a million years would she have thought of this as a possibility.

“I don’t think you should feel guilty. I’m sure Chat Noir doesn’t mind, that’s what heroes do, isn’t it?” he offers her a smile and Marinette tries to wipe her tears. Adrien’s missing the point.

“I’m just falling for him and he’s not getting the chance to fall for me back and I’m just going to end up in the same situation I’m always in where I’ll never be able to say anything and I’m just always waiting to be noticed and it won’t matter because he’s already in love with Ladybug and won’t know that we’ve had so much together and it’s not fair. It’s not fair to him and it’s not fair to me. I don’t have a chance.”

“Oh. Um…” Adrien swallows. He just looks like he feels guilty.

“What do I do?”

“I don’t know, Marinette. My loop was self-inflicted…” he looks down to the floor in shame.

“What did you do on yours? If you took advantage of the repeats, what did you do?”

“I told Ladybug secrets. Five minutes isn’t that much time, Marinette. You’re living out _days_.”

“And you regret telling Ladybug your secrets?” that doesn’t sound right. Especially since he was _Adrien_. There’s no way she would have disapproved of anything he told her.

“I think so. I never got a clear reaction, but every time I said something I had the instant regret that I shouldn’t have said it. I would still do it again, I think. It’s just… once you find something out, you can’t forget it even though nobody else will know.”

“Is that so bad?” she repeats what Chat’d asked her before their Cheesecake Thursday kiss.

“Aren’t you curious about some things? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with finding things out. You’re stuck in a time loop, you might as well make the most of it so that you have the energy to keep going... I don’t know what to tell you about the time-advantage on Chat Noir, though,” Adrien says with a wince. Was _Adrien Agreste_ jealous? Maybe she should do it.

Maybe she _should_ do it!

“Adrien, if I confessed to you on one of these loops would you feel like it wasn’t fair? To get my answer like that?” she asks. He bites his lip for a second.

“ _Are_ you confessing?” he asks. 

“I don’t know. The whole Chat Noir thing has made me very confused.”

“It’s made me a little confused, too. I’m not sure what to say... I don’t know what you already know or don’t know or what we’ve said before. This is really complicated. You’re in a really complicated situation. I do forgive you if you do confess to me on a loop I won’t remember. I don’t think it’s unfair.”

“Are you asking me to?”

“I really don’t know how you want me to answer that? I’m so confused,” he shakes his head.

“I’m confused too,” she lets out a little laugh and then before they know it they are both doubled over with a fit of giggles about the ridiculousness of everything.

Chat Noir acts a little strange that night. It’s weird how sometimes he falls out of routine. 

“Chaton, are you okay?” she asks him, pulling him aside. He blushes at the nickname.

“I’m okay. Is something the matter?”

“I’m stuck in a time loop. You’ve never acted so weird, tell me what is so different about today from the rest of past todays.”

“How am I supposed to know? I don’t have anything to compare it to,” he laughs. She nods. He does have a point.

“Are you alright? If I were in your situation-”

“Some days are good and some days are bad. You said I don’t have to be as scared if you’re here, and you’re here for me every day. I can at least count on you, and that helps more than you can know. So I know there’s something wrong with you today,” she tells him, hoping for him to freeze the way he had the night before. It does seem to jolt him a little, but he’s not as starstruck this time. This is officially Wrong Thursday. Everything has been a mistake.

“I… don’t think I want to talk about it,” he seems sheepish.

“Will dessert help?”

“What kind of dessert?” Maybe food was really the key to Chat Noir.

* * *

“What’s your plan?”

“I don’t know. I’m starting to get desperate, but I will keep going until I figure it out,” Marinette feels like she’s said that one too many times now. It’s starting to feel like a lie. It’s wearing on her, just like Chat Noir and Adrien had both warned her in the beginning.

“What I think… is that I have to beat Hawk Moth today. Or at least before you go to sleep.”

“What?” Marinette laughs.

“If you can figure out how to tell me first thing in the morning, that would be best. It would give me more time to lure out Hawk Moth,” Chat Noir rolls over to pick at the corner of her rug, his tail flicking lazily in the air.

“That seems just as impossible.”

“I have to get you out of this, Marinette. You look lifeless,” he says it in a way that makes her sure that he’s not joking.

“Even before you told me this was time thirteen, I could tell that you were pretending.”

“Yester-Thursday was a little rough.”

“What happens on the hundredth Thursday? The thousandth? Ten thousandth? And it’s not even _by choice_?”

“Chat… I’ve wondered this before, but have you had something like this happen to you before?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because you’re always more worried about me than anyone else. Well, almost everyone else,” and it’s the truth. Chat Noir and Adrien always reacted first with concern for her when finding out about the situation. 

“I don’t know what to tell you, I don’t know what you already know or don’t know or what we’ve said before. I’m afraid of saying anything that will break promises I’ve made.”

“Chaton…”

“I do know what it’s like to feel trapped, and I wouldn’t want anyone I care about to have to feel that way. That’s why I’ll do whatever I can to protect you,” he crosses his arms on the floor and nestles his head into them. It’s no use to squash down the thought that she loves him.

* * *

This Thursday marks two weeks. Marinette briefs Tikki while getting ready for the day. Today is the day. She’s going to do work and break this cycle. She has a nutritious and energizing breakfast of oatmeal topped with some granola bits, a banana, the raspberries, and almonds. She arrives to school early. She briefs her friends, giving them each intelligence-gathering chores to complete. They rope in more of the class on it, and she briefs the members of Art Club as well. She tells her parents when she gets home, they wait for Chat Noir. _Kitchen Competition_ comes and goes and Chat Noir still doesn’t show up. Her friends all check in before midnight, empty-handed from their various time-travel related quests. Max sends her a paper that she doesn’t understand and probably wouldn’t help her even if she did. This wasn’t quantum mechanics, this was magic. She appreciates the effort, though. The day is disappointing, but she’s not giving up. She just wishes that Chat Noir had been there for support.

* * *

Marinette uses the raspberries to make fruity crumble bars for a dessert treat instead of eating them at breakfast on day fifteen. Chat Noir is _delighted_ and she catches her heart fluttering in her chest in response. She would never be able to tell him. Just like how she could never tell Adrien. He stops making his happy food noises when he notices the way she’s watching him.

“Are you alright, Marinette?” he asks. They’re alone. Nobody would ever know except for her. It would be selfish. It would be so, so selfish.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Chat Noir. I think I’m falling in love with you,” she does it anyway. He freezes, and then chokes. She helps pat his back as he catches his breath.

“W-why are you telling me? Have we talked about this already?” he sputters.

“Not really, no.”

“Marinette, I am a superhero. I’m really sorry,” he looks _regretful_. 

“If you weren’t, do you think you could come to like me?”

“Didn’t we do this when your dad was akumatized?” Chat Noir sighs, trying to get out of it.

“This is different. I’m not faking.”

“Did you… is there something you’re not telling me?” he asks.

“No,” she mumbles. Why was he so _suspicious_ of her? She knew that from his perspective this was really unexpected, _he_ hadn’t spent the last two weeks spending every day together. But it still hurt a little. She didn’t know why she’d expected anything different.

“Don’t you like some boy at scho-” he stops in the middle of his own sentence, “You’re doing the thing where you exploit the resets, right? He rejected you so you’re asking everyone?”

“What makes you think he’d reject me?” Marinette isn’t sure why that’s the point she chooses to argue.

“He didn’t?” Chat Noir softens, “You’re confessing to me first?”

“You jerk. You were supposed to say stuff about how you like Ladybug, not dunk on me for being a mess around Adrien. I even made you raspberry crumble!” Marinette teases.

“Is that the only reason you said it? Because you knew I’d say I’m in love with Ladybug instead?” he’s not playing along.

“I said it because I felt it,” she sighs.

“Really?”

“I’m going to go to sleep this very second and pretend I never did this.”

“Hold on,” Chat stops her, “Do it again tomorrow.”

“What?”

“I’m interested if it’ll be different. Do it differently.” No time like Right Now.

“Do you like me, Chat?”

“I… I don’t know? Maybe a little. Not like Ladybug. I think if you said all this to me at the right moment instead of out of the blue I’d kiss you. And then not know what to do,” he adds that vagueness on to the end just for good measure. What is it with boys not giving her a straight answer?

“You were the one that kissed me first and got me like this in the first place,” Marinette’s not sure why she says that. The way Chat Noir is rejecting but not rejecting her is really too confusing. It’s even more confusing than that mess with Adrien on Bad Thursday. Maybe she was exploiting the resets, like Chat said. She feels bad about that.

“Really? Why would I?” he blinks. She knows why. Because he knew. She was already in the mud on this one, anyway. Might as well go all-in and get out.

“We think you thought that I could be Ladybug,” Marinette says. His eyes narrow at her, assessing. It feels like forever. She holds her breath and clenches her fists at her sides. Why does this confession feel so _terrible_?

“You _are_ Ladybug,” Chat Noir states.

There is nothing she can do but nod.

“Have we had _this_ discussion before?” he asks, sounding tired.

“I made you leave immediately last time,” Marinette almost laughs at herself.

“Alright. Because my immediate reaction is that I need to tell you who I am. It’s only fair.”

“No! No way. It is _not_ fair. Time is going to reset and you won’t remember this but _I will_ ,” she argues quickly, grabbing onto his hands like that will stop him or something.

“But… it will make it easier for you to find me in the morning and we can work on freeing you from this together?”

“Last time I found you in the morning, you made a huge scene at school and we made zero progress anyway,” she laughs at the memory. Chat Noir smiles at her, and it’s so kind. So genuine. So full of caring, because he does care. Would it be so bad to know? Nobody would know she knew, not even Tikki.

“I don’t think you’d regret knowing, Marinette,” Chat Noir pushes, probably sensing that she’s unsure of her own decision. 

“Okay,” she approves before she can stop herself with the powers of self-preservation and common sense. She lets go of his wrists and takes a step back. Closes her eyes.

“Claws in,” she hears him.

“Tikki!” Plagg’s voice is unmistakable.

“They’re finally doing it!” Tikki sounds excited.

“About time.”

“Come on, Marinette! Open your eyes!” Tikki cheers. What was Tikki so excited abou-

“You’re kidding,” Marinette’s chest folds in on itself. It’s Adrien. That makes too much sense.

“Ta-da!” he holds out his palms to shimmy his hands, awkward smile and everything.

“You’re _kidding_ ,” she shakes her head in denial.

“Oh. I thought your reaction would be better…” his arms drop to his sides.

“I’m going to have to tell you that I know this _every day_ ,” Marinette groans. There is no way she can keep this secret, it is absolutely not fair.

“You can pretend you don’t know if you want to mess with me,” he offers brightly.

“Why would I do that?!” she reprimands.

“I would,” Adrien is smiling now. Marinette groans even louder this time.

“So can I kiss you?” Adrien asks. He asked _that_! With his face! Adrien did!

“Don’t get crazy just because this isn’t going to exist for you tomorrow,” Marinette holds up her hand to pause. 

“Can I kiss you _because_ it won’t exist for me tomorrow? I want the whole… however much time before the carriage turns into a pumpkin. Even if I don’t remember it, it was still real,” his debate skills are extraordinary today. She shouldn’t be surprised, he is Adrien. But that’s what makes her remember all of the conversations she’s had with Adrien over the past two weeks.

“When you were Aspik, you told me about this? And I was upset?”

“I mean, you’re upset right now, so…” he points out.

“I’m not upset, I’m just overwhelmed. I’m so glad it’s you, I just… I spent the last week agonizing over my feelings about Chat and Adrien and that was all apparently for nothing and it’s not going to matter anyway because I am _still stuck in this time loop_ and I was so close to losing my cool and this is just one thing too many!”

“I’m sorry, Marinette. I didn’t mean for all this to overwhelm you,” Adrien bites his lip, “How about we have some raspberry crisp.”

“Don’t offer me my own food, Agreste,” she folds her arms indignantly. He smirks, helping himself to a new bar and passing another to her. They eat in silence. Marinette watches Tikki and Plagg have a whole unspoken conversation in facial expressions and flipper gestures.

“Why can’t we reveal our identities to each other, anyway?” Adrien breaks the silence

“It is the _only_ rule!”

“You know who everyone else is, right? Can you tell me? I won’t remember tomorrow anyway.”

“Nino’s Carapace,” she figures that’s the one that’s going to matter the most to him.

“I knew it! Cough up, Plagg!” the blonde cheers victoriously.

“I don’t have €50, Adrien. I am a spirit who is above your worldly mortal materialism,” Plagg pretends to take a meditation posture as Tikki giggles.

“God, Chat. Betting?”

“I was right, though,” he beams and then mellows out into a normal smile, “Feeling better?”

“A little,” Marinette sighs, “Sorry for being so mad."

“No. I understand how this is stressful. We need to figure out how to free you.”

“My hero,” she replies flatly. He laughs.

“It’s an effect from the rewinding akuma from last night, right?” Plagg speaks up, “It should be cancelled out if there’s a new akuma.”

“There aren’t any akumas today, though,” Marinette informs him.

“Not unless we cause one!” Adrien stands up so fast Marinette almost gets whiplash. She looks up at him, he’s holding out his hand. She gets what he means.

“Mr. Ramier.”

“Exactly,” he nods as she takes his hand. Figures that Plagg would know how to fix this the whole time and not be able to say anything because Adrien was transformed. That’s the sort of irony that was directing her life now, for sure. For sure she’d fall for the same guy twice just because he was so committed to the people he cared about. For sure she’d mess up and do something crazy _the one day_ out of a potential millions of repeated days that she actually breaks the cycle.

‘The price to pay,’ Adrien and Chat had both warned her.

And it works.

Kind of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang, Adrien. Way too chill.
> 
> Any inconsistencies where Marinette doesn't notice something or fails to put clues together is just because brains and memory are really fallible. She's under a lot of stress, here!
> 
> Part two is done as well and I will post that on another THURSDAY.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Adrien's turn now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY THURSDAY
> 
> There's actually near-zero Desperada PTSD in this so there you go.

Adrien is pumped to get to school and see Marinette. He’s sure they broke her out of her Second Chance problem last night but there’s the _chance_ they didn’t and he wants to find out if it worked or what else she did to escape from it. He’s just really excited. He can’ believe last night was _real_. Figuring out Marinette and Ladybug were one in the same and watching _Marinette_ go off on him like Ladybug would? Priceless. And she’d said she loved him. Loved him! Ladybug was in love with him!

And it’s Friday! So they can go out on a real date and have fun and laugh about how blind they’ve been and hold hands. Maybe she will even let him kiss her today. That’s all he really wants. He’s a simple man. Adrien practically floats through breakfast and into the limo to ferry him across the street to school. He doesn’t see Marinette yet, she’ll probably show up just on time or nearly late as she usually does. Adrien spots Nino, Alya, and Alix and practically skips over to them.

“Look, this akuma kept rewinding Chat Noir and Ladybug,” Alya holds her phone screen out towards him.

“Yeah, Rewinder?” he nods. Didn’t… didn’t they talk about this yesterday?

“Akuma names are so lame sometimes,” Alix comments. Oh no.

“Yeah _Bubbler_ ,” Alya teases Nino and he comes back with his weak-butt defense. Adrien swallows. Crap. He did _not_ get himself stuck in Marinette’s time loop. No way. Alya glances up and waves her hand high in the air.

“Mari! Did you see that akuma last night?” Alya greets. Adrien whips around to look at Marinette. Did they trade places or was she still stuck here too?

“Yeah I did. I actually got hit and I’ve been stuck in a _Groundhog Day_ , as you put it,” Marinette says just as generously as she had yesterday, “Max is going to come over and we have a pop quiz in calc.” That confirms it. He’s still in Thursday. Marinette’s Thursday.

“How many days is it for you?” he asks. She looks at him oddly before answering.

“Fifteen.” Oh no. He’s in _his_ yesterday, which was _her_ 15th Thursday. They weren’t in round 16 together. She didn’t remember. She didn’t know that he knew who she was and that she knew who he was. What they did. Anything. He feels nauseous. Marinette had been absolutely right. It was way less fun on this end and he’d only been here for a minute.

“Are you okay, Adrien? You look a little sick,” Nino asks. He glances around at his friends’ concerned faces. 

“I’m worried?” he offers. They all take that at face value. Good for them.

“Does everything happen the same way each day?” Alix asks like she did yesterday and Marinette nods like she did yesterday.

“It’s caused by the akuma, so I don’t have to try and set anything right to escape. None of the heroes have been able to figure out how to help, either. We’ll figure it out eventually,” Marinette nods with determination at them, exactly what she said yesterday. It was probably her script to keep everyone from suggesting obvious things they’ve suggested before. Marinette really still went to school every day during this and said all of this stuff to them every day? She sits through a calculus quiz and their boring literature class every day? Marinette really truly was a god among men. There was no way he was going to behave himself like that. He wouldn’t have told everyone like that, either. Or anyone, probably. He would have just done it all by himself, probably another 26,000 times. What if the akuma trick didn’t work for him? There was no reason to believe that it wouldn’t- it’d obviously done _something_ when they tried it last night or he wouldn’t be in this situation now too. He’d get a good emotional reveal with Ladybug, and then break them out of the loop with the akuma trick. If it didn’t work, then (and only then) he was allowed to panic. There was no reason to panic in the meantime, he could just enjoy the opportunity. Actually now that he really thinks about it, the possibilities presented here are endless. 

Feeling better and actually kind of excited about this whole thing instead of filled to the brim with dread and terror, he settles in to pretend like everything is normal for the rest of the schoolday. The problem is he’s not super clear on what happened yesterday. His memories were a little dominated by the whole Marinette and Ladybug and being in love thing. So he actually pays more attention in class than expected, aces Marinette’s dreaded calculus quiz, and takes her advice again about getting stir-fry at lunch. He really wants to ask her to skip Literature with him and go goof off somewhere, but refrains. Adrien does remember that Lit is _boring_ and that doesn’t disappoint. After official school he sits through Chinese tutoring and aces the crap out of that one too. When he finally escapes to Marinette’s house it has not come nearly fast enough. Adrien had really failed to take in account just how _annoying_ repeating a whole day potentially was. And Marinette had 15 of them. And she even _still_ _went to school_. She was really too good for this world.

“I’ve repeated today fifteen times. It’s a lingering effect from the akuma on Wednesday, I don’t know why it picked _me_ , but that’s what we think is happening,” Marinette’s explaining in a completely matter-of-fact manner. He’s looking forward to the fruit bars, it’s only a few minutes until fruit bars. And then confession!

“What’s your plan?” he almost forgets to say what he’d said the day before. Chat Noir had been so sure in that moment that Marinette _definitely_ had a plan. She always did, just like Ladybug always did (which made sense since she’s Ladybug). Except for today.

“I’ll just have to keep enduring. I’ll figure it out eventually, I know that I will,” she looks a little discouraged, like she doesn’t believe what she’s saying. It was such a Marinette thing to say, though. He was sure she did mean it. Enough days in the loop and it would become her mantra. The thing to keep her going.

“That’s really brave,” Chat means that just as much as he had the first time. He watches Marinette’s soft smile. She was in love with him! For saying something just as simple as that!

“Oh! I made raspberry crumble. Stay put, I’ll be right back!” she nearly trips over herself on the stairs to go retrieve the treat from the kitchen. He waits obediently.

Marinette happily serves up the fruit bars and Chat Noir is more than happy to eat it. He’s pretty sure it was going to take _a lot_ of Second Chances before he gets tired of these. The raspberry. The gooeyness. The crunchy granola. Just. Everything about it. Marinette was truly The Best. She’s watching him so closely, looking like she hurts. He knows why this time, and decides to continue with yesterday’s script, minus the part where he literally choked in reaction to the news that she liked him. He did still want her to confess to him. Marinette was the type of person that could be easily dissuaded. He’d have to be careful with the things that he changed.

“Are you alright, Marinette?” he asks. He watches the decision happen this time. He can recognize it for what it is. He won’t be blindsided this time. He won’t be cautious or have to reject her. It was going to be _perfect_.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Chat Noir. I think I’m falling in love with you,” Marinette doesn’t sound shy or timid about it. She was completely sure. He sets down the remnants of his fruit bar and steps up close to her, searching her face.

“Can I kiss you?” he reaches for her hand.

“What?” she blinks, obviously shocked, pulling her hand back. Oh no. He’d already messed it up somehow? He instinctively goes to Second Chance before remembering it’s not his own self-inflicted time loop. What was he supposed to say _now_? Maybe this could still be salvaged.

“It really is food that makes you do that?” she looks really disturbed while he’s still trying to figure out what to say next.

“Do what?”

“Want to kiss me!”

“So I’ve kissed you before?” he literally _can not_ hold back from teasing her. Why was he like this??

“Cheesecake Thursday.”

“You made me _Cheesecake_?” Chat Noir feels inexplicably _moved_. That was so nice! Marinette’s _great_! He loved cheesecake and Plagg loved cheesecake and why couldn’t Thursday number 15 have been Cheesecake Thursday? Why did he get stuck with Fruit Bar Thursday? It could have been _Cheesecake_ Thursday!!!

“Oh my god, and I thought it was something else,” she rolls her eyes. Chat remembers what he’s doing. This is no time to get upset about cake.

“What else?”

“We thought you might have kissed me because you thought I was Ladybug.”

“You are Ladybug,” he states confidently this time, maybe a little too fast. Like he already knew. Which he did, actually. The way Marinette had put her last sentence, though. We? They’d _discussed_ it before on one of her other thursdays. Probably the Thursday After Cheesecake Thursday, since Ladybug probably wouldn’t wait long to confront him.

“You know?” she looks terrified.

“If I want to kiss you, that makes sense,” he stops short of asking to kiss her again because it was becoming a little clear that Marinette might actually not want to kiss him at all. And he’d gone and done it anyway on _Cheesecake Thursday_. Cheesecake Thursday Chat Noir was an idiot and Fruit Bar Thursday Chat Noir hated him.

“Chaton…” she takes a deep breath. Oh, ‘ _chaton_ ’! Spicy!

“Marinette, I think you are really special and really there is no comparing, because it’s you either way,” he hugs her. There’s an established precedent for the hugging, it’s not as weird as kissing. Hugging is probably really good. He at least thinks hugging is really good. Especially when her arms squeeze him back.

“So this is… okay? Even if I keep resetting and you won’t remember any of this?” she pulls back to look at him, her face so earnest. So guilty.

“That’s more than okay. I’d do it if I were you. Whatever keeps you going,” he nods enthusiastically, “It’s exhausting to repeat over and over.”

“Chat, have you had something like this happen to you before?” _Purrfect!_ The ideal opportunity to tell her who he is without the whole detransformation thing.

“Kind of. I’m actually Adrien Agreste, so I repeated all those times as Aspik, remember? I had a goal then though... so it’s a little different than now.”

“Are you… trying to mess with me, Chat? I swear-”

“No. I’m Adrien,” he promises. He knows now that he’s said it she’ll be able to see it, just like he’d seen Ladybug on her.

“So you’ve… known that I liked you?” Marinette looks totally mortified and like she’s going to freak out like she usually does about these secret emotions things.

“You confessing to Chat Noir first though was really something I didn’t expect,” he nods, grinning. This is pretty funny.

“Oh my god I- you- we-”

“Yeah,” he laughs. She tilts her head back and groans loudly, hands on her cheeks. Chat Noir loves these dramatics. Yes, loves! He loves her! And she loves him! It’s great.

“I feel _so stupid_. I spent the last week agonizing over my feelings about Chat and Adrien and that was all apparently for nothing and it’s not going to matter anyway because I am _still stuck in this time loop_ and I was so close to losing my cool and this is just one thing too many!” whoops he recognizes that outburst, “And I’m going to _remember all of this_ and you won’t even know! I’ll have to tell you all over again _every day_!”

“It’s okay, Marinette! Imagine the look on Alya’s face when you pull me aside first thing in the morning and we spend the rest of the day like lovestruck idiots,” he smirks. That’s a really good idea. That’s what he’s going to do on tomorrow’s repeat.

“No! A. No _way_ am I doing that and B. it’s not fair to you!”

“How is it not fair to me to not know who you are when you know who I am? You can’t take it back once you know something,” he crosses his arms. Marinette takes a deep breath.

“I meant that it’s not fair that I have _this_. I’m the only one who is going to remember all these… things we said to each other and for you it will be like nothing happened, and I know that’s not what you want and that’s why it’s not fair,” Marinette’s looking at the floor, but it might be the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to him.

“Marinette… we will figure out how to get you out of this and I will be just as happy the next time. And the next, and the next,” he swears. She frowns, looking at up him. It’s cute.

“It wouldn’t be wrong of me? It’s not taking advantage of how kind you are to me?” she argues.

“What? No. No way,” he shakes his head. Marinette was really beating herself up over all this technical stuff, “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me,” she argues. This is just as much of a mess as it was yesterday, to be honest. “You’re the one that kept telling me all of this was still _real_!”

“Real to you. And it’s real to me right now. It is real.”

“I just wish it wasn’t so complicated. I wish I wasn’t stuck in here!” she sits down heavily on her chaise and his heart squeezes in some sort of guilty sympathy ache. Marinette was actually distressed. He’d forgotten how overwhelmed she was on her 15th Thursday. It was all taking a toll on her and he was just rolling in on the troll train to make it worse.

“No matter what I’ll be in your corner on this. I won’t judge you. You don’t have to be upset or guilty when it comes to me. You know I will do anything for you, and it’s because I want to,” Chat Noir apologizes, hoping that helps. Even if this Marinette was going to reset for him, he didn’t want her to suffer. He was beginning to think he maybe shouldn’t reset at all. It was possible he might not just from virtue of he’s not sure how any of this works. He still had to make today good. Just in case. He sits down next to her and she pulls him into a hug. They stay like that for a long time.

* * *

“Marinette,” Adren’s been waiting for her at the door to her parent’s bakery first thing the next morning. The girl in question stands there in complete shock, eyes as wide as can be.

“Is… today Thursday?” he can hear the hopeful timber in her voice and he suddenly feels even _more_ guilty. Why did this keep happening?

“Yes. It’s your fifteenth and my third,” Adrien decides to keep going with his plan for the day anyway. You don’t know unless you try, after all.

“ _What_?” she gulps.

“Don’t freak out,” he cringes.

“H-how did you get stuck too?”

“Well… I’m Chat Noir and maybe I tried a little too hard to break you out,” he tells her. Marinette starts to force out some incomprehensible syllables. Adrien can tell it’s taking a lot of effort. He’s broken her.

“I know you’re Ladybug, too.”

“ _How_?” she demands. What he wants to know is how _that_ snapped her how of her shock so fast?

“You were so moved by how much Chat likes your raspberry crumble you told me you loved me and then some other stuff?”

“Are you _kidding_?”

* * *

“Marinette,” he’s trying this again just this time he transformed into Chat Noir first.

“Is… today Thursday?”

“Your 15th, my fourth. Long story. Don’t freak out.”

“How did you get stuck too? I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to drag you in with me!!”

“It’s fine, Marinette. Not your fault. I just want to tell you that I like you too.”

“Y-y-you do? I told you?”

“Yeah, you did. Do you maybe want to go goof off with me instead of school today? I don’t know if I can sit through my literature class again, I might die.”

“What a mood,” she laughs. Laughs! He’s at least made her laugh today. Oh, the powers of Chat Noir. So strong. “Alright. Just this once.”

“You got it,” he smirks. He takes her by the hand and they walk down the sidewalk to Notre Dame Bridge and then spend most of the day in the flower market on the other side. He maybe causes a little bit of mayhem, but Marinette seems more relaxed and at ease than she’s been yet. That’s good. Chat wasn’t sure why he was being overly concerned about her well-being now. It’s not like it was her time loop, it was his. But he couldn’t make it _not matter_. Part of having feelings for her was wanting to be her support. He just couldn’t control that.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Chat Noir. I think I’m falling in love with you,” she confesses even though his mouth isn’t full of fruit bar and he’s not even said anything moving to her.

“What is it about me that makes it so much easier for you to blurt that than with Adrien?” he really is starting to get curious. 

“Adrien’s… I at least know you’ll just say you’re a superhero and that I have to remember that you’re dedicated to Ladybug,” she sighs, leaning over the rail on the bridge to look down into the water of the Seine. Chat bypassess telling her that he knows her identity in favor of getting answers to questions. That’s what today will be for, regardless of how fun this flower date has been.

“What do you think Adrien would say?” it was kind of cute now that he thinks about it how she fell in love with him twice.

“I don’t know. I don’t _want_ to know!”

“What? Why?”  
“I don’t… I just think he… I don’t think that’s what he needs from me right now,” Marinette sighs. What the heck is she talking about? He’s glad she’s never confessed to Adrien so that he hadn’t accidentally rejected _Ladybug_ without knowing any better, but this was a complete _nonsense reason_.

“What do you mean?” it sounds a little more confrontational than he means. A little defensive.

“I’m his friend and I just think that… that is precious to him. And it’s precious to me too. I’m sure we’d still be friends if a romantic relationship didn’t work out, but he might think I was only his friend because I was interested and it’s not like that, and-”

“It’s okay, Marinette. I understand,” Chat Noir shakes his head, a tiny smile playing at his lips. It was the right move. She had good instincts. Because an Adrien that didn’t know who she was would probably let her down in some way, and he would never stop feeling bad about it. He felt bad about it even hypothetically. He always had. Hypothetically. Man, he really always did like Marinette, didn’t he?

“Oh Chaton, I didn’t mean like I only told you because I-” Marinette seems to only just now remember that she confessed to him not even a whole minute ago. He cuts her off with a laugh.

“It’s okay! What’ll you do if I say I love you back?” Chat levels at her. Marinette’s face reddens.

“D-do you _like_ me?”

“Yes. You’re amazing.”

“Chat…” she breathes in surprise. Is it really so shocking to her? What had he done in all her other Thursdays to make her doubt that so much? He’d have to ask her later.

“Can I kiss you?” he searches her reddened face as she decides on an answer. Her answer is a very tiny affirmative nod.

Overall, a fantastic Thursday. No reveal, which was bad, but a kiss, which was good. A fantastic Thursday.

* * *

Adrien’s turn.

“Get the stir-fry,” Marinette suggests emphatically. He honestly doesn’t want to eat stir-fry again. Was the chicken and salad so bad? What about the soup? Why was he even bothering to limit himself to these three choices?

“Marinette! This is going to sound crazy, but since you’re in a time loop and it won’t count anyway do you want to maybe go eat somewhere else? With me?” he tacks that bit on so there’s no way she’ll decline. She blinks at him, eyes wide. It was an expression he was really getting used to seeing.

“Did… how is today different for you?” she frowns. There’s someone trying to ask him what his order is, but he ignores it. He shrugs in order to avoid answering Marinette’s question with either a truth or a lie. 

“You and Chat Noir are the only two people that sometimes go off-script,” she clarifies. It probably hinged a lot on what she told Adrien in the mornings, if he had to guess. If she’d spent enough days in the time loop she would probably figure him out eventually. That’s a little bit reassuring, somehow. Marinette narrows her eyes at him in suspicion. Or she’s figured him out right now, that’s fine.

“Unless _you’re_ Chat Noir,” she says right there in the middle of the freaking _cafeteria_. That didn’t take long. He does guess it doesn’t matter that she’s done it publically, though. They are stuck in time loops, after all. This really is something new. It’s exciting how each day was so different even if it was technically the same day.

“Yeah? Guess that makes you Ladybug,” he teases with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. Her eyes widen and he grins. This was great. “So do you want to go out to eat with me or not?”

Another good Thursday, but she doesn’t tell him her feelings so actually a bust.

* * *

“I’m here for Marinette! Fate of the world level stuff! Sorry!” Chat Noir kidnaps Marinette out of the Rewinder Akuma discussion first thing in the morning. He sets her down on a rooftop. She crosses her arms as soon as her feet hit solid ground and stares him down. She wanted an explanation, he could tell. Boy, was he going to give her one.

“It’s your 15th Thursday and my 6th. On my first Thursday I figured out you were Ladybug and told you I was Adrien Agreste. We thought we figured out how to fix your _Groundhog Day_ but I got stuck in _my_ Thursday. I don’t want you to freak out or get mad at me, but our emotional feelings are mutual and I just want to see what happens if I tell you all of this first thing.”

“Wh… what do you _want_ to happen?” Marinette blinks at him. She probably hasn’t processed everything he said yet. 

“I don’t know. I know it’s a hard day for you and I rarely make it better,” Chat has practically spent all of his time in this time loop stressing her out in one way or another.

“You… you always make it better, Chaton. You said I don’t have to be as scared if you’re here, and you’re here for me every day. I can at least count on you, and that helps more than you can know,” Marinette seems so soft when she says it. So full of love. She is a literal saint, she really is. Chat feels like he might cry. Might. Marinette smiles. Or. That’s not a smile, that’s a _smirk_.

“If I ask you what’s wrong you’ll say something about how touched you are that someone needs you like that.”

“We’ve had this discussion before…” he feels a little bit played. Good move, Marinette. A woman after his own heart. Literally.

“If you tell me about your 6 Thursdays I’ll tell you about my 15,” she offers. She’s so comfortable. She has barely freaked out today over the reveal info and they haven’t even had _a moment_ either! What the heck!

“ _Please_ tell me about Cheesecake Thursday, I’ve been jealous of that one so much I might die,” he gives in.

“I’m going to tell you about Cheesecake Thursday _last_ ,” Marinette is super evil. He _likes_ it.

* * *

“What if I told you I’m in love with Marinette?” Adrien is messing with Nino today instead. Yesterday gave him too much to think about. Marinette had really spent so many meaningful Thursdays with Chat Noir and all he’d done in the same situation was Be Weird at her. So he’d suffered through school and invited Nino back to his house and Nino had very patiently waited through Adrien’s Chinese tutoring so they could hang. Some mistakes were made. Adrien was glad his bro wouldn’t remember it.

“You can’t. I called dibs, dude. Remember?” Nino rolls his eyes.

“What?”

“The zoo,” Nino reminds, “I liked Marinette first.”

“Oh… what about Alya?” Adrien is _really confused_ by this. Nino chuckles, and Adrien realizes that Nino is _teasing_ him. Adrien’s learning that he’s really been underestimating his friends on this front, “Alright. You have dibs. I guess I’ll let poor Marinette pine away after me for seventeen billion years.”

“She probably will,” Nino’s still laughing.

“I guess if you have dibs she has to. Nino, you’re sentencing that poor girl to a lifetime of _suffering_!”

“Maybe Alya and I will take pity and welcome her into our fold.”

“ _Fold_? Ew,” Adrien sticks out his tongue. Nino’s laughter dies out but he’s still smiling, which is good.

“You and Mari are going to be an obnoxious power couple, dude.”

“You have no idea,” Adrien confirms with a heavy nod.

“What brought this on? I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about this thing and you really were going to let her pine after you for seventeen billion years?” Nino pushes.

“It’s her time loop. I just… fifteen days and she hasn’t broken down or done crazy stuff or anything. She just keeps going to school and talking to all of us and… she’s too good for the world, Nino. She’s just strong… and determined… and amazing...”

“Yeah, I know,” Nino nods, “What changed for you, though? You were all-in on the friends thing not going to even acknowledge to yourself that she has feelings and now you wanna get married, super penguino, adopt hamsters together instead.”

“I’m gonna propose on top of Tour Eiffel,” Adrien smirks.

“Great. Don’t think I’m letting you off.”

“Yeah. You know how you’re Carapace, right?” Adrien drops. He can’t wait to figure out what Nino’s reaction is.

“What about it?” Nino is _completely passive_. Wow.

“I’m Chat Noir and Marinette is Ladybug.”

“I don’t think that’s relationship goals, dude. Not who I’d pick,” Nino scrunches up his face a little bit, and Adrien realizes that Nino had zero reaction because he didn’t believe him. He was so used to Marinette believing him automatically 100% all of the time that it didn’t even occur to him that Nino would just think he’s joking.

“I meant it literally, not figuratively,” Adrien holds up a hand to show the ring, “You too, Ninja Turtle.”

“Are you kidding?” Nino groans. It’s kind of funny how much that echoes Marinette’s reactions.

“Nope.”

“Why are you telling _me_?”

“Because you’re my bestie and who else is gonna listen to me fawn about Marinette? Marinette? Gotta get it out of my system somehow.”

“I hate you.”

“You too,” Adrien grins. 

“Can I tell Alya?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Marinette basically hits him when Chat Noir arrives late to her house for _Kitchen Competition_.

* * *

Raspberry Crumble! How he’s missed it. He’s not sure how he ever felt resentful about the fruit bars, they were fantastic. He really was never going to get tired of them. It’s the flavor of love.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Chat Noir. I think I’m falling in love with you,” Marinette says. That’s his cue. Play it straight, no confronting her, no judging, nothing. Absolutely no telling her about Adrien without her permission.

“Marinette,” he says it kindly. He’s acting. It’s the third day in a row he’s tried this one. It is really annoying to wait out a whole day to redo something instead of using Second Chance. “I really like you, but I’m a superhero. And you know how I feel about Ladybug.” It’s what she’d wanted him to say originally, he thinks.

“What… what if I was Ladybug?” she stammers out, but the look of determination on her face is true and awe-inspiring.

“You don’t have to be Ladybug,” Chat shifts his weight. He’d gone with ‘What if I were Adrien Agreste?’ yesterday and that had been more of a disaster than it usually was.

“Chat Noir, I am Ladybug,” she is much more convincing with it this time. How those words make his heart sing, though! It’s all he’s wanted to hear since the beginning of everything.

“I believe you. Do you want to know who I am? It will make tomorrow’s repeat easier for you, maybe,” he offers. 

“Do you like me, Chaton?”

“You know that I do. I love you. I think you are really special and really there is no comparing, because it’s you either way. And I think… I hope you will feel the same way about me when you know who I am.”

“No! No way. It is _not_ fair. Time is going to reset and you won’t remember this but _I will_ ,” she argues quickly, grabbing onto his hands like that will stop him from detransforming.

“I don’t think you’ll regret knowing, Marinette,” he whispers to her, remembering that’s what convinced her the first time. She closes her eyes, thinking it over.

“I want to wait until I’m unstuck. If we really like each other, it shouldn’t matter,” she states definitively. Chat groans internally. Now he has to _not say that he loves her_ tomorrow? What the heck was he _supposed_ to say? This was too confusing. It was taking him way more Second Chances than he’d originally thought this would take.

“Would it help knowing that I’m also stuck in a time loop? One adjacent to yours. I’m repeating your 15th Thursday,” again with the honesty. He was such a sap.

“Chat!”

“So I will remember this you, and you will remember this me,” he smiles, “Does that make you feel better?”

“No! That makes me feel way worse! How did I trap you in here?”

“I’m not…” he stops himself from telling her he’s not trapped and amends, “sure. It’s not your fault, Marinette.”

“But you _just said_ you’d hate for anyone to feel trapped like you’ve been before and now you are again. Are you okay, Chat? How many days has it been?”

“Ten.”

“You’ve almost caught up to me,” she gasps.

“I’m fine, Marinette. I’m actually kind of even having fun. I’m just like… really stubborn. You remember how Adrien Agreste did those ten thousand resets or whatever when you gave him the snake?”

“25,000… something…”

“Yeah, and I’m even more stubborn so I think I’ll be fine.”

“Adrien’s not fine from that,” Marinette shakes her head in disagreement, “We need to figure out how to get out.”

“What makes you think Adrien’s not fine?” he can’t help how defensive that sounds. It doesn’t matter though because he _wants_ her to figure out who he is.

“He wouldn’t be so worried about whether or not I was okay in my situation if he wasn’t totally okay himself,” she explains.

“Maybe he just cares about you,” Chat smirks. Are they really still discussing this? He’s really gotten too far into this conversation.

“He’s gone out of his way to make sure I don’t go stir crazy.”

“Please... let me show you, you will feel so much better. We can worry about Adrien on Friday if you think you still need to.”

“Why wouldn’t I? He’s my friend!” Marinette _stomps_. He’s touched. He really is. 

“I know that he is,” Chat says softly. This situation is _so dumb_. He just wants it to be over now, “Maybe we should just eat some raspberry crisp and you can think about where you want to go from here.”

“Don’t offer me my own food, Chat,” she folds her arms indignantly. He bites down a laugh and goes for a second helping of fruit bar.

* * *

“Marinette… can I talk to you?” Adrien asks, “Alone?”

“Ee! Ah um yes,” he receives an eventual nod in reply. He pulls her under the courtyard staircase. She’s gonna _freak_.

“Have you used your time loop to confess to me yet?” Adrien asks, feigning concern. He knows that she hasn’t and that she wouldn’t and she pretty much never would no matter what the circumstances were. Not to Adrien, at least.

“W-what?” she pretends like she has no idea what he’s talking about but it’s super obvious that she does. 

“Oh… maybe I was wrong. If I were in your situation, I would have done it by now…” he bashfully rubs his neck and looks away from her. He chances a glance back at her when she doesn’t say anything. 

“Y-you _like_ me?” she stammers and he thinks it’s funny that Marinette’s totally missed the point that he knows that she likes him.

“I’ve just been in denial about it for a long time and I… I want to support you. I’ll be in your corner, Marinette. No matter what. You’re worth it,” none of this was really that much of a lie. Or a lie at all. This was working out just to be regular old Adrien confessing to regular old Marinette. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

“Oh my god,” Marinette takes a deep, shaky breath. 

“You’re amazing,” he says with a smile.

“You’re amazing too,” she breaks into a grin in answer to his. Marinette’s come around pretty quickly, considering. He suddenly feels a little shy when he opens his arms for a hug.

* * *

The next day he doesn’t do that again, but he flirts with her as Adrien instead. It really riles her up and is very amusing but nothing comes of it. He does the normal thing with Chat Noir and the fruit bars but Marinette doesn’t tell him that she’s in love with him. So it was a pretty fragile thing, but he already knew that given how many times he’d messed it up. 

“I wonder where you were yester-Thursday,” she smiles to herself as he’s got raspberry goo and granola all up in his facial orifices. He can’t swallow fast enough.

“ _What_?”

“You didn’t come over. It was the first day I haven’t seen you and I… I missed you,” Marinette’s so sweet, but she also didn’t tell him about that!

“Is that why you made me raspberry crumble today?”

“Who said I don’t make you raspberry crumble every day?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like you don’t. You nearly tripped down the stairs,” he pretends. She does technically make the fruit bars every day, just not from her perspective.

“You’re right,” Marinette relents with a small smile.

“Do you think something you did yester-Thursday messed up mine?”

“Maybe. Told everyone possible the situation and told everyone to try and do everything they could think of to figure it out. Max- he’s in my class- sent me this whole _dissertation_ I didn’t understand. I feel so bad I wasted his time but also I guess it doesn’t count…”

Adrien’s pretty sure he would have transformed and gone on yet another unsuccessful search for Hawk Moth. Probably got busy with that and completely forgot about _Kitchen Competition_.

Today’s Chat Noir and today’s Marinette spend the rest of the evening using a stargazing phone app to figure out if they can see the ISS go by. They get distracted with figuring out where things in the sky were supposed to be and miss it. It was refreshing just to do something different. Something that felt like a normal night for Marinette and Chat Noir. Something new.

* * *

Adrien was maybe ready to admit that this time loop thing sucked. He is _tired_ of school. So he doesn’t go because it doesn’t matter. He’s been so focused, spending all of his time on Marinette and none on himself. If you ignored that the whole Marinette thing was something selfish to begin with. Which he was absolutely going to do. He spends the day playing an MMO and doesn’t go to Marinette’s for food-themed reality television. The next day he does the same. Alright. It’s a few days. Maybe he spent a day or two in there pranking his father and Nathalie just for kicks. He goes to eat everywhere he’s ever wanted to try in Paris, and there are a lot of _very fancy_ places to eat in Paris. When he gets tired of the video games he catches up on all of his television shows and watches a few he hasn’t gotten to yet, or maybe one or two he wasn’t even allowed to watch. Finally, eventually, that becomes boring too. He’s brainstorming on what he wants to do next (play outside) when he realizes that he misses Marinette. He should drag her with him. He decides not to, since that is something he’d want to do with her in real life that they both remembered. When he does go to see her again after practicing very hard at _Mecha Strike_ she still creams him.

Maybe they could figure out who Hawk Moth was if they stayed in the resets long enough. He’s learned his lesson from Aspik, though. Sometimes you have to acknowledge what your limits are.

* * *

So it’s day 48 when he climbs in the limo to go to school without the intention of causing shenanigans. He’s done everything he didn’t have time to do in real life and it’d been good for him but it’s _very_ refreshing to see all of his friends again. He’s forgotten everything from all of his classes, but is still able to ace the calc quiz. He invites himself over to Nino’s after school and Marinette’s only a little bit suspicious- asking him about fencing. He didn’t have fencing on Thursdays but he’d probably lied to her about that at some point.

He and Nino mess around trying to figure out how to do a skateboard ollie. Nino got it so fast that Adrien suspects he might have already known how to do it. He does appreciate that his friend would pretend for him. Post-loop they can skip to just doing ollies together. Chat Noir makes it to Marinette’s just in time for _Kitchen Competition_. He challenges her family into their own miniature version of the show and two hours later her parents have more than definitively beaten them at cooking. It was something he almost wished he’d done outside the loop. They’re so full of food Marinette doesn’t even offer him any fruit bars.

* * *

“Do you feel like you’re older?” Chat’s laying on the floor, Marinette’s got a time travel book from the library she’s reading. He’d asked earlier if he could just stay with her through the night and it seemed like she was used to that request and that it’d made her happy.

“Do you usually feel older than you were two weeks ago? I feel the same so far.”

“Yeah,” he agrees with a sigh, “I wonder how much time has to go by to feel older than you are.”

“I hope I get out before that happens,” Marinette chuckles nervously. There he goes stressing her out about this whole thing again.

“Takes more than half a year,” is that reassuring? It doesn’t sound reassuring.

“How do you know that?” she’s suspicious now. Chat rolls over to pick at the corner of her rug in order not to have to watch her face. He’s tired. He’s just tired now.

“I have about that much time collectively spent in unreal time.”

“You just told me you’ve never had this happen to you,” Marinette slams her book shut.

“Aspik is not the same thing as this… exactly,” he sighs and listens to her silence as she puts together who he is.

“Adrien.”

“Mm-hmm,” his eyes are closed already. He hopes that she reciprocates.

“Is that why you keep trying to help me?” she sounds almost… disappointed. He snuggles his face deeper into his arms, inhaling the slick leather of his suit as a comfort. He’s done with these scenarios. Tomorrow is the 50th Thursday for him, and that’s 49 more than he should have had. Not that he has any regrets. It’s just time.

“No… not really... I keep trying to help you because I care about you.”

“I’m not Ladybug.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” he mumbles from the floor. He hears her walk over before she taps him on the elbow with the toe of her slipper. Chat Noir blinks up at her.

“Tikki, spots on!” she calls out. He’s never seen that before. He sits up to stare at Ladybug. He doesn’t think he’s met Ladybug proper at all during this whole ordeal. He hadn’t even thought about it. But here she was.

“You… you just lied to me,” Chat scolds teasingly. His heart isn’t in it even though he feels like he usually would be. Maybe if this had been their conversation on day two…

“I wanted to see your reaction,” she smiles and his heart can’t do anything but vibrate for it. No matter what she ever does or what she says or what they do, he loves her. In every possibility, he loves her. That’s all that matters.

“I love you,” he vocalizes it. She blushes, but it’s not the Marinette who has all that hesitation about Adrien. He knows by now she dispenses of that readily.

“I love you too, you stupid cat. How dare you do this to me when I’m stuck in a time loop and you won’t even remember it?” she huffs as she sits down in front of him cross-legged. He grins sleepily.

“You’ll just have to tell me again.”

“But I already know how it will turn out!”

“That just makes it easier for you,” he points out.

“But that’s not fair!”

“I promise that it won’t matter to me, Marinette,” he yawns.

* * *

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Chat Noir. I think I’m falling in love with you,” it’s been so long since he’s heard this that he goes and chokes on the Raspberry Crisp again like an idiot. Marinette is gracious enough to pat his back while he suffers. Embarrassing.

“You okay?” she giggles when he’s regained some semblance of breathing.

“Marinette!” he nearly shouts at her.

“I’m sorry,” she winces, “You’re here for me every day and I… I’m sorry. I know.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” he insists quickly, “I’m the one that’s sorry…”

“No, no! I know you’re a superhero and stuff! And you like Ladybug! And I shouldn’t have said anything!”

“There’s not any difference in my feelings about you and Ladybug,” his throat still feels like he’s swallowed a hedgehog. Maybe he should reset just one more day? What’s the harm in that?

“What… what does that mean?” Marinette blinks.

“I like you and I think you’re amazing,” he states. She looks about as confused as she probably should be.

“It really is the food that makes you fall for me?” she cocks her head to the side, still obviously calculating. 

“It does not hurt,” he chuckles, “But I like you anyway. I’ve been in denial but if you’re going to confess to me instead of Adrien, I need to acknowledge what my feelings are about you.”

“Oh,” she squeaks, obviously having forgotten all about Adrien. Poor dude.

“There’s something important I need to talk to you about. Is that okay?” he asks gently, with a seriousness he knows she will pick up on. Marinette gives him one resolutely enthusiastic nod. She’s still probably a little shocked from the love confession bit.

“On the original fifteenth day of your loop, the two of us figured out how to break it. I woke up the next day repeating today because of the way Ladybug and I were affected by the rewinding akuma. The way he warped time around us messed things up but it was only enough energy for one of us at time,” he’s had more than enough time to discuss this with Plagg.

“You know I’m Ladybug,” she’s frozen.

“From my first Thursday. And in most versions of today you know who I am, too. You’re usually angry about it at first but then happy. I’ll be the first to report to you that we are _idiots_.”

“You’re one of the smartest people I know,” Marinette tells him. That’s beside the point but it feels a little nice anyway.

“Do you want to know this time? Who I am.”

“Yes, but… what day are you on, Chaton?”

“50.”

“What? Why, if you already knew how to get out?”

“For… fun?”

“Chat!”

“I know, I know,” he laughs.

“I can’t believe you!”

“Do you feel cheated?” he smirks. She thinks about it for a second and then sighs.

“I guess not. I don’t think you’d use it for evil,” she relents.

“ _See_? You could have used your loop to do everything you ever thought about wanting to do,” Chat Noir points out. She narrows her eyes at him.

“Who _are_ you?” she says, it’s accusatory but it’s also _double_ permission today! Hopefully she won’t be mad about it being him this time.

“Claws in,” he straightens himself out a little bit and does some jazz hands for her as his suit sparkles away, “Ta-da!”

“Are you _kidding_?” she laments immediately. Adrien drops his hands down. Why was that always her reaction?

“Yeah, I know. You spent all week agonizing about Adrien and Chat but he was the same guy all along. Lucky you,” it made him a little uncomfortable even saying it as a joke.

“That makes too much sense. I can’t believe it!” she sounds angry about it, though.

“I told you we were dumb,” he mumbles. Marinette hesitates, really seeing him now.

“Oh, Adrien… I’m glad it’s you. I’m so glad it’s you,” she reaches for his hand. That does make him feel better. Tikki is absolutely beside herself with excitement over this.

“We are going to get out of this together and be on equal footing,” he promises in a whisper. He’s not sure why.

“We are _always_ on equal footing. I’m sorry I ever doubted it. We are the best together,” Marinette smiles. He hugs her and it feels like the number one thing to ever happen in his whole life. Yeah, today was acceptable.

“In all my repeats, we still care about each other no matter what I did differently. Whether or not we revealed or confessed or both… we are here for each other, so I think that’s like a real truth about how things are.”

“Were you _testing_ it, Adrien?!”

“No!” he defends quickly, “To be honest I spent like a week trying to get good enough at _Mecha Strike_ to beat you.”

“Now _that’s_ cheating, Agreste,” she smirks at him, a competitive spark lit. He laughs. They leave Marinette’s some time later and make their way hand-in-hand to where Mr. Ramier is feeding the birds from a bench on the Georges Pompidou.

* * *

The doorbell is ringing, ringing, ringing. Like someone is just going to town on that callbox button. Adrien sits up with a sudden realization that _this is different_. He jumps out of bed and takes off down the hall and the stairs, past Gorilla, and out the front door.

“Adrien!” Marinette yells at him from the other side of the gate, “It’s Friday!”

“How many Thursdays did you have?” this gate can really not open fast enough.

“15! How many did you have?”

“50!”

“It worked!!” she jumps up and down happily. There’s finally enough space for her to squeeze through and he catches her up in a tight hug. 

“I love you,” he tells her again anyway just because he can, for real, say that whenever he wants now without having to navigate the complexities of time travel or worry about potential negative reactions.

“I love you too!” Marinette beams back at him. There is nothing better in this world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there aren't actually 100 Thursdays in this fic, it's just taken from something Chat/Adrien said in Marinette's chapter. You can imagine that Adrien went wild for another million days if you'd like, I'm sure he'd find enough to do.
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!! I know this chapter was a little superfluous but I wrote it so whatever. I hope you have a great Thursday and that all of your future Thursdays are also great.


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